42 THE COMILETE ANGLER. [part I. 



Jew, tells us of a river in Judea that runs swiftly all the six days 

 of the week, and stands still and rests all their Sabbath.* 



But I will lay aside my discourse of rivers, and tell you some 

 things of the monsters, or fish, call them what you will, that they 

 breed and feed in them. Pliny the philosopher says, in the third 

 chapter of his ninth book, that in the Indian Sea the fish called 

 Balaena or Whirlpool t is so long and broad as to tafc up 

 more in length and breadth than two acres of ground ; and of 

 other fish of two hundred cubits long ; and that in the river 

 panges there be Eels of thirty feet long. He says there, that 

 these monsters appear in that sea only when the tempestuous 

 winds oppose the torrents of water falling from the rocks into it 

 and so turning what lay at the bottom to be seen on the water's 

 top. And he says that the people of Cadara, an island near this 

 place, make the timber for their houses of those fish bones. He 

 there tells us that there are sometimes a thousand of these great 

 Eels found wrapt or interwoven together. He tells us there, that 

 it appears that dolphins love music, and will come when called 

 for, by some men or boys that know, and use to feed them ; and 

 that they can swim as swift as an arrow can be shot-out of a bow ; 

 and much of this is spoken concerning the dolphin, and other fish, 

 as may be found also in the learned Dr Casa!ubon's J " Discourse 

 of Credulity and Incredulity," printed by him about the year 

 1670. 



, I know we Islanders are averse to the belief of these wonders ; 

 but there be so many strange creatures to be now seen, many 

 collected by John Tradescant,§ and others added by my friend 



* The same is related by Philo. — B. 



t Balana properly means a whale. 



X Meric, son of Isaac Casauban, born at Geneva in 1599. but educated at Oxford, 

 was for his great learning preferred to a Prebend in the Cathedral of Canterbury, and 

 the Rectory of Ickham near that city. Oliver Cromwell would have engaged him, by a 

 pension of three hundred pounds a year, to write the history of his time, but Casaubon 

 refused it. Of many books extant of his writing, that mentioned in the text is one. He 

 died in 1671, leaving behind him the character of a religious man, loyal to his prince, 

 exemplary in his life and conversation, and very charitable to the poor. Atken. Oxon. 

 <fo\. ii. 485, edit 1721. — H. Casaubon's work " Of Credulity and Incredulity in Things 

 Natural, Civil, and Divine," was first printed at London, in 8vo, 1668; and again in 1670. 

 What relates to the Dolphins is at p. 243 of the first edition. Caspar Peucerusy quoted 

 by Walton, part L chap, v., about Menwolves, is mentioned at p. 252 of the same work. 

 It contains a great deal of curious anecdote. — E. 



2 There were, it seems, three of the Tradescants, grandfather, father, and son; the 

 son is the person here meant : the two former were gardeners to Queen Elizabeth, and 

 the latter to King Charles the First. They were all great botanists, and collectors of 

 natural and other curiosities, and dwelt at South Lambeth in Surrey ; and, dying there, 

 were buried in Lambeth Churchyard. Mr Ashmole contracted an acquaintance with the 

 last of them, and, together with his wife, boarded at his house for a summer, during 

 which Ashmole agreed for the purchase of Tradescant's collection, and the same was 

 conveyed to him by a deed of gift from Tradescant and his wife. Tiadescant soon after 

 died, and Ashmole was obliged to file a bill in Chancery for the delivery of the 



