APPENDIX VIII. 



HISTORICAL NOTES. 



a Richard Franks, in his " Northern Memoirs," attacks Walton 

 for what he has said of the pickerel-weed, in the following terms : 

 "When I met him (Izaac Walton) at Stafford, I urged his own 

 argument upon him, that pickerel-weed of itself breeds pickerel ; 

 which question was no sooner stated, but he transmits himself to 

 his authority, viz., Gesner, Dubravius, and Aldrovandus, which I 

 readily opposed, and offered my reasons to prove the contrary ; 

 asserting that pickerels have been fished out of ponds where that 

 weed (for aught I know) never grew since the nonage of time, nor 

 pickerel ever known to have shed their spawn there. This I pro- 

 pounded from a rational conjecture of the heronshaw, who, to 

 commode herself with the fry of fish, because in a great measure 

 part of her maintenance, probably might lap some spawn about her 

 legs, in regard to adhering to the segs and bullrushes, near the 

 shallows, where the fish shed their spawn, as myself and others, 

 without curiosity, have observed. And this slimy substance adher- 

 ing to her legs, &c., and she mounting the air for another station, 

 ;n all probability mounts with her. Where note, the next pond she 

 haply arrives at, possibly she may leave the spawn behind her ; 

 which my Compleat Angler no longer deliberated, but drops his 

 argument, and leaves Gesner to defend it ; so huffed away, which 

 rendered him rather a formal opinionist than a reformed and prac- 

 lirul artist, because to celebrate such antiquated records, whereby 

 to maintain such an improbable assertion." H. 



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