62 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



but wantonness; and it is rather to be believed, because both 

 he, then, and many others before him, have been curious to 

 search into their bellies, what the food was by which they 

 lived ; and have found out nothing by which they might 

 satisfy their curiosity. 



Concerning which you are to take notice, that it is reported 

 by good authors, that grasshoppers, and some fish, have no 

 mouths, but are nourished and take breath by the porousness 

 of their gills, man knows not how : and this may be believed, 

 if we consider that when the raven hath hatched her eggs, 

 she takes no farther care, but leaves her young ones to the 

 care of the God of nature, who is said, in the Psalms, " to 

 feed the young ravens that call upon him." And they be 

 kept alive, and fed by dew, or worms that breed in their nests, 

 or some other ways that we mortals know not ; and this may 

 be believed of the Fordidge trout, which, as it is said of the 

 Stork (Jerem. viii. 7), that, "he knows his season," so he 

 knows his times, I think almost his day of coming into that 

 river out of the sea, where he lives, and, it is like, feeds nine 

 months of the year, and fasts three in the river of Fordidge. 

 And you are to note that those townsmen are very punctual 

 in observing the time of beginning to fish for them ; and 

 boast much that their river affords a trout, that exceeds all 

 others. And just so does Sussex boast of several fish ; as 

 namely, a Shelsey cockle, a Chichester lobster, an Arundel 

 mullet, and an Amerly trout. 



And now for some confirmation of the Fordidge trout : 

 you are to know that this trout is thought to eat nothing in 

 the fresh water,* and it may be better believed, because it is 

 well known that swallows, and bats, and wagtails, which are 

 called half-year birds, and not seen to fly in England for six 

 months in the year, but about Michaelmas leave us for a 

 better climate than this ; yet some of them that have been 

 left behind their fellows, have been found many thousands at 

 a time, in hollow trees, or clay caves ; where they have been 



* There is no species of trout whatsoever that does not feed in fresh water. 

 The sea-trout (salmo trulta) and the bull-trout (salmo ferox), though they mi- 

 grate to sea, like the salmon, and for a time thrive and fatten therein, return 

 to their native rivers, and feed on small fish and insects; indeed, they are the 

 greatest destroyers of salmon-fry. There is no fish that has its mouth sewn up 

 as it were ; and what Walton says about grasshoppers and frogs having no 

 mouths is simply laughable. All that Walton says of the Fordidge, a river 

 near Canterbury, and of ravens, etc., is perfectly fabulous. ED. 



