CHAP. VIII.] THE FOURTH DAY. 193 



up so much of your attention, as to tell you, that the best of 

 pikes are noted to be in rivers ; next, those in great ponds 

 or meres ; and the worst, in small ponds. 



But before I proceed further, I am to tell you, that there 

 is a great antipathy betwixt the pike and some frogs : and 

 this may appear to the reader of Dubravius, 1 a Bishop in 

 Bohemia, who in his book " Of Fish and Fish-ponds," 

 relates what, he says, he saw with his own eyes, and could 

 not forbear to tell the reader. Which was : 



" As he and the Bishop Thurzo were walking by a large 

 pond in Bohemia, they saw a frog when the pike lay, very 

 sleepily and quiet, by the shore side leap upon his head ; and 

 the frog having expressed malice or anger by his swollen cheeks 

 and staring eyes, did stretch out his legs, and embraced the 

 pike's head, and presently reached them to his eyes, tearing, 

 with them and his teeth, those tender parts : the pike, moved 

 with anguish, moves up and down the water, and rubs him- 

 self against weeds, and whatever he thought might quit him 

 of his enemy ; but all in vain, for the frog did continue to 

 ride triumphantly, and to bite and torment the pike, till his 

 strength failed ; and then the frog sunk with the pike to the 

 bottom of the water: then, presently, the frog appeared 

 again at the top ; and croaked, and seemed to rejoice like a 

 conqueror; after which,he presently retired to his secret 

 hole. The Bishop, that had beheld the battle, called his 

 fisherman to fetch his nets, and by all means to get the pike 

 that they might declare what had happened : and the pike 

 was drawn forth ; and both his eyes eaten out, at which 

 when they began to wonder, the fisherman wished them to 



1 Janus Dubravius Scala, bishop of Olmutz in Moravia, in the sixteenth 

 century, was born at Pilsen in Bohemia ; was sent ambassador into Sicily, 

 and made President of the Chamber which tried the rebels of Smalcald. 

 Besides the above book, (the Latin title whereof is "De Piscinis, et 

 Piscium qui in eis aluntur, naturis, ) he wrote in Latin, a ' ' History of 

 Bohemia ; " and an oration to Sigismund, king of Poland, exhorting him to 

 make war on the Turks. He seems to have practised the ordering of fish- 

 ponds and the breeding of fish, both for delight and profit. His book " On 

 Fish and Fish-ponds, in which are many pleasant relations, was, in 1599, 

 translated into English, and published in quarto, by George Churchey, 

 fellow of Lion's Inn, with the title of " A new Book of good Husbandry, 

 very pleasant and of great profit, both for gentlemen and yeomen, containing 

 the order and manner of making of fish-ponds," &c. H. 



