THE TROUT. 121 



And before I go further in my discourse, let me tell you, 

 that you are to observe, that as there be some barren does 

 that are good in summer, so there be some barren trouts that 

 are good in winter ; but there are not many that are so, for 

 usually they be in their perfection in the month of May, and 

 decline with the buck. Now you are to take notice, that in 

 several countries, as in Germany and in other parts, com- 

 pared to ours, fish differ much in their bigness and shape, 

 and other ways, and so do trouts : it is well known that in 

 the Lake Leman, the Lake of Geneva, there are trouts taken 

 of three cubits long, as is affirmed by Gesner, a writer of 

 good credit ; and M creator* says, the trouts that are taken 

 in the Lake of Geneva are a great part of the merchandise 

 of that famous city. And you are further to know, that 

 there be certain waters, that breed trouts remarkable both 

 for their number and smallness. I know a little brook in 

 Kent that breeds them to a number incredible, and you may 

 take them twenty or forty in an hour, but none greater than 

 about the size of a gudgeon : there are also in divers rivers, 

 especially that relate to or be near to the sea, as Winchester, 

 or the Thames about Windsor, a little trout called samlet, 

 or skeggcr trout 1 (in both which places I have caught twenty 

 or forty at a standing), that will bite as fast and as freely as 

 minnows : these be by some taken to be young salmon ; but 

 in those waters they never grow to be bigger than a herring. 



There is also in Kent, near to Canterbury, a trout called 

 there a Fordidge trout, a trout that bears the name of the 

 town where it is usually caught, that is accounted the rarest 

 of fish ; many of them near the bigness of a salmon, but 

 known by their different colour ; and in their best season 

 they cut very white ; and none of these have been known to 



