CHAP. IV. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 59 



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 farther 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 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 

 townsmen are yery punctual in observing the time of be- 

 ginning 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 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, 



the grasshopper has no mouth, but a pipe in his breast, through which it suck 

 the dew, which is its nutriment. There are two sorts, the green and the dun ; 

 some say there is a third, of a yellowish green. They are found in long grass, 

 from June to the end of September, and even in October, if the weather be 

 mild. In the middle of May, you will see, in the joints of rosemary, thistles, 

 and almost all the larger weeds, a white fermented froth, which the coun- 

 try people call Cuckoo Spit f in these the eggs of the grasshopper are depo- 

 sited ; and if you examine them, you shall never fail of finding a yellowish 

 insect, of about the size and shape of a grain of wheat, which, doubtless, is 

 the young grasshopper. A passage to this purpose, is in Leigh's History of 

 Lancashire, page 146. 



