112 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART I. 



the night, by the light of a torch or straw, which, when 

 they have discovered, they strike with a Trout-spear, or 

 other ways. This kind of way they catch very many : but 

 I would not believe it till I was an eye-witness of it, nor 

 do I like it now I have seen it. 



Yen. But, master, do not Trouts see us in the night? 



Pise. Yes, and hear, and smell too, both then and in 

 the day-time: for Gesner observes, the Otter smells a 

 fish forty furlongs off him in the water: and that it may 

 be true, seems to b affirmed by Sir Francis Bacon, in the 

 eighth century of his Natural History, who there proves 

 that waters may be the medium of sounds, by demon- 

 strating it thus; "That if you knock two stones together 

 very deep under the water, those that stand on a bank 

 near to that place may hear the noise without any dimi- 

 nution of it by the water." He also offers the like expe- 

 riment concerning the letting an anchor fall, by a very 

 long cable or rope, on a rock, or the sand, within the sea. 

 And this being so well observed and demonstrated as it 

 is by that learned man, has made me to believe that Eels 

 unbed themselves and stir at the noise of thunder, and 

 not only, as some think, by the motion or stirring of the 

 earth which is occasioned by that thunder. 



And this reason of Sir Francis Bacon, (Exper. 792 r ) 

 has made me crave pardon of one that I laughed at for 

 affirming that he knew Carps come to a certain place, in 

 a pond, to be fed at the ringing of a bell or the beating of a 

 dram. And, however, it shall be a rule for me to make 

 as little noise as I can when I am fishing until Sir Fran- 

 cis Bacon be confuted, which I shall give any man leave 

 to do. 1 



(1) That fish hear, is confirmed by the authority of late writers: Swammer- 

 dam asserts it, and adds, that " they have a wonderful labyrinth of the ear for 

 that purpose." See Swamroerdam, Of Insects, edit. London, 1758, p. 50. A 

 clergyman, a friend of mine, assures roe, that at the abbey of St. Bernard, near 

 Antwerp, he saw Carp come at the whistling of the feeder. 



