122 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



be caught with an angle, unless it were one that was caught 

 by Sir George Hastings, an excellent angler, and now with 

 God : and he hath told me, he thought that trout bit not for 

 hunger but wantonness ; and it is rather to be believed, be- 

 cause 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 re- 

 ported 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 further 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 towns- 

 men 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 



