APPENDIX. 197 



possessed any real knowledge on this point, on 

 which they are contradicted by every practical fisher- 

 man, says of the salmon, " the farther they get from 

 the sea the better." Dr. Thomas Moffet, who lived in 

 the reign of Queen Elizabeth, thus gives his experi- 

 ence, on the same subject, in his " Health's Improve- 

 ment." " Gesner commendeth them that go fathestup 

 into fresh rivers, accounting them worst which are 

 taken nearest the sea ; which I find to be true in the 

 difference betwixt the salmons of upper Severn (be- 

 twixt Shrewsbury and Bewdley) and the salmons 

 taken betwixt Gloucester and Bristol. Nevertheless, 

 if they go too high up the river, they wax leaner 

 for want of sufficient nourishment, as manifestly 

 appeareth, which I myself have seen, in the salmon 

 of the Rhine taken at Ringfielden beyond Bazil, 

 and at Oppenheim above the city of Mentz. Though 

 Dr. Moffet says, " salmon are a fatty, tender, short 

 and sweet fish, quickly filling the stomach, and soon 

 glutting;" yet we learn from him that hot salmon 

 was " counted unwholesome in England, and sus- 

 pected as a leprous meat ;" but he adds, "without all 

 reason ; for if it be sodden in wine, and afterwards 

 well spiced, there is no danger of any such acci- 

 dent." His contemporary, Thomas Cogan, " Mais- 

 ter of Artes, and Bacheler of Phisicke," in his 

 " Haven of Health," printed in 1589, had, however, 

 no very high opinion of it, either as a dainty or a 

 wholesome article of food, placing it after such 

 fishes as the pike, perch, whiting, gurnard, gudgeon, 

 bream, and loach, in a separate chapter, " Of other 

 fishes much used though not so wholsome." He 

 T 



