216 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



the several sorts of strange fish that are usually taken in 

 many of those rivers that run into the sea, I might beget 

 wonder in you, or unbelief, or both ; and yet I will venture 

 to tell you a real truth concerning one lately dissected by Dr. 

 Wharton, a man of great learning and experience, and of 

 equal freedom to communicate it ; one that loves me and my 

 art ; one to whom I have been beholden for many of the 

 choicest observations that I have imparted to you. This good 

 man, that dares to do anything rather than tell an untruth, 

 did, I say, tell me he had lately dissected one strange fish, and 

 he thus described it to me : 



" The fish was almost a yard broad, and twice that length ; 

 his mouth wide enough to receive, or take into it, the head 

 of a man ; his stomach seven or eight inches broad. He is of 

 a slow motion, and usually lies or lurks close in the mud, and 

 has a moveable string on his head, about a span or near unto 

 a quarter of a yard long, by the moving of which, with his 

 natural bait, when he lies close and unseen in the mud, he 

 draws other fish so close to him that he can suck them into 

 his mouth, and so devours and digests them." 



And, scholar, do not wonder at this, for besides the credit 

 of the relator, you are to note, many of these, and fishes that 

 are of the like and more unusual shapes, are very often taken 

 on the mouths of our sea-rivers, and on the sea-shore. And 

 this will be no wonder to any that have travelled Egypt ; 

 where 'tis known, the famous river Nilus does not only breed 

 fishes that yet want names, but by the overflowing of that 

 river, and the help of the sun's heat on the fat slime which 

 that river leaves on the banks when it falls back into its 

 natural channel, such strange fish and beasts are also bred, 

 that no man can give a name to, as Grotius, in his " Sophom," 

 and others, have observed. 



But whither am I strayed in this discourse. I will end it 

 by telling you, that at the mouth of some of these rivers of 

 ours herrings are so plentiful, as namely, near to Yarmouth 

 in Norfolk, and in the west country, pilchers so very plentiful, 

 as you will wonder to read what our learned Camden relates 

 of them in his "Britannia," p. 178, 186. 



Well, scholar, I will stop here, and tell you what by read- 

 ing and conference I have observed concerning fish-ponds. 



