50 NATURAL H I S T Q R Y of NO R WA T. 



the aforefaid horned infe£t, they difcharge a red liquor foon 

 after, through the -probofcis that had fuck'd it in f . 

 Red-worm. On the coaft of the Weftern ocean, in the water between the 

 many'iflands and cliffs near that fhore, in warm Summer days, 

 are found more or lefs, and fome years immenfe quantities 

 of a kind of fmall, and hardly perceptible Red-Worm, called 

 Roe-Aat ; they look like the fineft fewing filk ; they are hardly 

 half the length of a pin, but in fuch numberlefs quantities, as has 

 been faid, that they perfectly colour the water ; one quart of 

 •Water may contain many millions. When the Worms appear in 

 fuch great quantities they do vaft damage to the herring-fifhing, 

 for the roe of the fifli immediately rots on their fixing on it, and 

 particularly when they are inclofed, or drove up in a creek, as 

 iometimes they are, by feveral hundred or thoufand tuns together, 

 to be rinfed and {kited occafionally 3 which ihall be fpoken of in 

 its proper place. 



From thefe Roe-Aat it fhould feem that a certain fort of Snails 

 get that red colour, which occasions the excrements of one of our 

 coaft birds, called Teiften, which lives chiefly on thofe {hails, to 

 be of a very high red colour ;' this they drop all along the Ihore. 

 We may probably have Purple-Snails of the fame kind as the 

 Oriental, tho 7 not regarded. - 



Bear-fifh. We have here alio a kind of mifchievous fea-infe&, called 



Fifke-Biorn, that is, the Bear-fifh, by the common people : it 

 has a whitifh, hard and mining horny fhell, divided by twelve 

 rings or circles ; and on the undermoft or flat fide it has twelve 

 feet. The larger! of thefe as I have feen, and of which I have, 

 is about the length of a joint of a finger, but the leaft not a 

 quarter part fo big ; and they differ in colour. Thefe vermin 

 plague various forts of fifh, but moft of any the cod. 



When he hangs to a hook, and cannot clear himfelf by fwim- 

 ming or fplalhing, then the Fifke-Biorn fattens on him, and fucks 

 out his juice and fat, fo that the cod won't be fit to eat. Thefe 

 Fifke-Biorne, or the like In{e6ts, hunt many fifh about fo, that 

 they feek for land by way of fhelter, about the rocks near there ? 

 according to the Creator's wife and gracious purpofes : particularly 

 the falrnon is ferved fo 5 a fifh otherwife with us difficult to catch. 



If it was not for a number of green and blueifh flat lice, fome- 

 thing like bugs, which get between his fins, and plague him fb, 



"f De pulice aquatico Hr. Swammerdam has very pretty obfervations in his Hifl. 

 Infeft. p. 70 : asalfo Derham in his Phyfico-Theolog, p. m.368. 



The creature intended by this author is the Notoneclia, or Boat-fly ; not the Pulex 

 Aquat, of Swammerdam, and others. 



that 



