THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 81 



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 a 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 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, 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 the fresh 

 water; and it may be the better believed, because it is well 

 known, that Swallows, and Bats, and Wagtails, which are 

 called half-year birds, and not seen to fly in England for six 

 months in the year, but (about Michaelmas) leave us for a hotter 

 climate, yet some of them that have been left behind their 

 fellows, have been found, many thousands at a time, in hollow 

 trees.* or clay caves, where they have been observed to live, 

 and sleep out the whole winter, without meat. And so Albertus ' 

 observes, that there is one kind of frog, that hath her mouth 

 naturally shut up about the end of August, and that she lives so 

 all the winter : and though it be strange to some, yet it is known 

 to too many among us to be doubted. f 



And so much for these Fordidge Trouts, which never afford 

 an angler sport, but either live their time of being in the fresh 

 water, by their meat formerly gotten in the sea, (not unlike the 

 Swallow or Frog,) or by the virtue of the fresh water only ; or, 

 as the bird of Paradise and the Chameleon are said to live, by 

 the sun and the air. J 



* View Sir Francis Bacon, Exper. 899. 



No proof worthy of the least credit has ever been given of this popular 

 notion, which is indeed physically impossible. J. R. 



f There can be no doubt that the mouth of the Frog is closed during its 

 winter torpidity. J. R. 



t That the Chameleon lives by the air alone is a vulgar error, it being- 

 well known that its food is Flies and other insects. See Sir Thomas 

 Brown's Inquiry into Vulgar and Common Errors, book iii. chap. 21. 



