Tin* COMPLETE ANGLER. 59 



As well as earth vines, roses, nettles, melons, 

 Mushrooms, pinks, gilliflowers, and many millions 

 Of other plants, more rare, more strange than these, 

 As very fishes, living in the seas ; 

 As also" rams, calves, horses, hares, and hogs, 

 Wolves, urchins, lions, elephants, and dogs ; 

 Yea, men and maids ; and, which I most admire, 

 The mitred bishop, and the cowled friar ; * 

 Of which, examples, but a few years since, 

 Were shewn the Norway and Polonian prince. 



These seem to be wonders ; but have had so many confirma- 

 tions from men of learning and credit, that you need not doubt 

 them. Nor are the number, nor the various shapes, of fishes 

 more strange, or more fit for contemplation, than their different 

 natures, inclinations, and actions ; concerning which I shall beg 

 your patient ear a little longer. 



The Cuttle-fish will cast a long gut out of her throat, which, 

 like as an angler doth his line, she sendeth forth and pulleth in 

 again at her pleasure, according as she sees some little fish come 

 near to her ; and the cuttle-fish, being then hid in the gravel, 

 lets the smaller fish nibble and bite the end of it ; at which time 

 she, by little and little, draws the smaller fish so near to her 

 that she may leap upon her, and then catches and devours her : 

 and, for this reason, some have called this fish the Sea-angler, f 



And there is a fish called a Hermit, that, at a certain age, gets 

 into a dead fish's shell, and, like a hermit, dwells there alone, 

 studying the wind and weather ; and so turns her shell, that she 



* This story of the bishop fish is told by Rondeletius, and vouched by 

 Bellonius. Without taking much pains in the translation, it is as follows": 

 " In the year 1531, a fish was taken in Polonia, that represented a bishop. 

 He was brought to the king ; but seeming to desire to return to his own 

 element, the king commanded him to be carried back to the sea, into which 

 he immediately threw himself." Rondeletius had before related the story 

 of a monk fish, which is what Du Bartas means by the " cowled friar." 

 'ihe reader may see the portraits of these wonderful personages in Ronde- 

 letius ; or, in the Posthumous Works of the reverend and learned Mr John 

 Gregory, in quarto, London, 1683, p. 121, 122, where they are exhibited. 



Stow, in his Annals, p. 137, from the Chronicle of Radulphus Coggeshale, 

 gives the following relation of a sea-monster, taken on the coast of Suffolk, 

 temp. Henry II. 



" Neare uivto Orford in Suffolk, certaine fishers of the sea tooke in their 

 nets a fish, having the shape of a man in all points : which fish was kept by 

 Bartlemew de Glaunvill*, custos of the castle of Orford, in the same castle, 

 by the space of six moneths and more, for a wonder. He spake not a word. 

 All manner of meates he did cat, but most greedily raw fish, after he had 

 crushed out the moisture. Oftentimes he was brought to the church, where 

 he shewed no tokens of adoration. At length," says this author, " when 

 he was not well looked to, he stole away to the sea, and never after 

 appeared." The wisdom of these fishermen in taking the monster to 

 church, calls to remembrance many instances of similar sagacity recorded 

 of the wise men of Gotham. Finding him so indevout, we may suppose 

 them to have been ready to exclaim with Caliban in the Tempest, 

 By this good light, a very shallow monster I 



t The cuttle-fish has not one long gut, as here represented, but eight 

 long arms, not cast out of, but surrounding its mouth or throat, with which 

 it catches its prey J. R. 



