OBSERVATIONS OF THE NATURE AND BREEDING OF THE TROUT, AND HOW TO FISH FOR HIM; AND THE MILKMAID'S SONG.

THE Trout is a fish highly valued both in this and foreign nations he may be justly said, as the old poet said of wine, and we English say of venison, to be a generous fish: a fish that is so like the buck that he also has his seasons; for it is observed, that he comes in and goes out of season with the stag and buck; Gesner says, his name is of a German offspring, and says he is a fish that feeds clean and purely, in the swiftest streams, and on the hardest gravel; and that he may justly contend with all fresh-water fish, as the Mullet may with all sea-fish, for precedency and daintiness of taste, and that being in right season, the most dainty palates have allowed precedency to him.

And before I go further in my discourse, let me tell you, that you are to observe, that as there be some barren does, that are good in summer, so there be some barren trouts that are good in winter; but there are not many that are so, for usually they be in their perfection in the month of May, and decline with the buck. Now you are to take notice, that in several countries, as in Germany and in other parts, compared to ours, fish differ much in their bigness and shape, and other ways, and so do trouts; it is well known that in the Lake

Leman, the Lake of Geneva, there are trouts taken of three cubits long, as is affirmed by Gesner, a writer of good credit; and Mercator* says, the trouts that are taken in the Lake of Geneva, are a great part of the merchandize of that famous city. And you are further to know, that there be certain waters, that breed trouts remarkable both for their number and smallness. I know a little brook in Kent, that breeds them to a number incredible, and you may take them twenty or forty in an hour, but none greater than about the size of a gudgeon: there are also in divers rivers, especially that relate to, or be near to the sea, as Winchester, or the Thames about Windsor, a little trout called samlet, or skegger trout (in both which places I have caught twenty or forty at a standing), that will bite as fast and as freely as minnows: these be by some taken to be young salmon; but in those waters they never grow to be bigger than a herring.†

There is also in Kent, near to Canterbury, a trout called there a Fordidge trout, a trout that bears the name of the town where it is usually caught, that is accounted the rarest of fish; many of them near the bigness of a salmon, but known by their different colour; and in their best season they cut very white; and none of these have been known to be caught with an angle, unless it were one that was caught by Sir George Hastings, an excellent angler, and now with God; and he hath told me, he thought that trout bit not for hunger

* Gerard Mercator, of Ruremond in Flanders, a man of so intense application to mathematical studies, that he neglected the necessary refreshments of nature. He engraved with his own hand, and coloured the maps to his geographical writings. He wrote several books of theology; and died 1594.-H. The skegger here alluded to is no doubt the young salmon in its first year before it has paid its first visit to the sea. As salmon has disappeared from the Thames, so have skeggers, or salmon fry. The Lake of Geneva still produces very large trout, which are frequently cooked on the spot, and sent express to Paris. Still, I do not think that any of them now grow to the length of "three cubits." They are not unfrequently caught weighing twentyfour or thirty pounds. Trout every bit as large are caught in some of the loughs and lochs of Ireland and Scotland. The smallest species of trout is now called "the parr," and very likely that is the fish to which Walton alludes in this passage," I know a little brook in Kent, that breeds them to a number incredible, and you may take them twenty or forty in the hour, but none greater than about the size of a gudgeon." When Walton mentions "barren trouts, that are good in winter," he falls into a common error. The barren trout are really male trout, which have shed their milt over the ova of the female fish in the early spawning months, August and September. The male fish very rapidly recovers from the exhausting process of procreation. Not so the female, which, if a large fish, is not fully convalescent until the May next following her accouchement.-ED.

but wantonness; and it is rather to be believed, because both he, then, and many others before him, have been curious to search into their bellies, what the food was by which they lived; and have found out nothing by which they might satisfy their curiosity.

Concerning which you are to take notice, that it is reported by good authors, that grasshoppers, and some fish, have no mouths, but are nourished and take breath by the

porousness of their gills, man knows not how: and this may be believed, if we consider that when the raven hath hatched her eggs, she takes no further care, but leaves her young ones to the care of the God of nature, who is said, in the Psalms, "to feed the young ravens that call upon him." And they be kept alive, and fed by dew, or worms that breed in their nests, or some other ways that we mortals know not; and this may be believed of the Fordidge trout, which, as it is said of the Stork (Jerem. viii. 7), that, "he knows his season," so he knows his times, I think almost his day of coming into that river out of the sea, where he lives, and, it is like, feeds nine months of the year, and fasts three in the river of Fordidge. And you are to note that those townsmen are very punctual in observing the time of beginning to fish for them; and boast much that their river affords a trout, that exceeds all others. And just so does Sussex boast of several fish; as namely, a Shelsey cockle, a Chichester lobster, an Arundel mullet, and an Amerly trout.

*

And now for some confirmation of the Fordidge trout: you are to know that this trout is thought to eat nothing in the fresh water, and it may be better believed, because it is well known that swallows, and bats, and wagtails, which are called half-year birds, and not seen to fly in England for six months in the year, but about Michaelmas leave us for a better climate than this; yet some of them that have been left behind their fellows, have been found many thousands at a time, in hollow trees, or clay caves; where they have been

* There is no species of trout whatsoever that does not feed in fresh water. The sea-trout (salmo trutta) and the bull-trout (salmo ferox), though they migrate to sea, like the salmon, and for a time thrive and fatten therein, return to their native rivers, and feed on small fish and insects; indeed, they are the greatest destroyers of salmon-fry. There is no fish that has its mouth sewn up as it were; and what Walton says about grasshoppers and frogs having no mouths is simply laughable. All that Walton says of the Fordidge, a river near Canterbury, and of ravens, etc., is perfectly fabulous.-ED.

observed to live and sleep out the whole winter without meat; and so Albertus observes, that there is one kind of frog that hath her mouth naturally shut up about the end of August, and that she lives so all the winter: and though it be strange to some, yet it is known to too many among us to be doubted.

And so much for these Fordidge trouts, which never afford an angler sport, but either live their time of being in the fresh water, by their meat formerly got in the sea (not unlike the swallow or frog), or by the virtue of the fresh water only; or, as the birds of Paradise and the chamelion are said to live, by the sun and the air.

There is also in Northumberland a trout called a bull-trout, of a much greater length and bigness than any in the southern parts. And there are, in many rivers that relate to the sea, salmon-trouts, as much different from others, both in shape and in their spots, as we see sheep in some countries differ one from another in their shape and bigness, and in the fineness of their wool. And, certainly, as some pastures breed larger sheep, so do some rivers, by reason of the ground over which they run, breed larger trouts.

Now the next thing that I will commend to your consideration is, that the trout is of a more sudden growth than other fish. Concerning which, you are also to take notice, that he lives not so long as the perch, and divers other fishes do, as Sir Francis Bacon hath observed in his "History of Life and Death."

And now you are to take notice, that he is not like the crocodile, which if he lives never so long, yet always thrives till his death. And you are to know, that he will about, especially before, the time of his spawning, get almost miraculously through weirs and flood-gates against the streams; even through such high and swift places as is almost incredible. Next, that the trout usually spawns about October or November, but in some rivers a little sooner or later which is the more observable, because most other fish spawn in the spring or summer, when the sun hath warmed both the earth and the water, and made it fit for generation. And you are to note that he continues many months out of season; for it may be observed of the trout, that he is like the buck or the ox, that he will not be fat in many months, though he go in the very same pasture that horses do, which will be fat in one month: and so you may observe that most

other fishes recover strength, and grow sooner fat and in season than the trout doth.

And next you are to note, that till the sun gets to such a height as to warm the earth and the water, the trout is sick, and lean, and lousy, and unwholesome: for you shall in winter find him to have a big head, and then to be lank, and thin, and lean at which time many of them have sticking on them sugs, or trout-lice, which is a kind of worm, in shape like a clove or pin, with a big head, and sticks close to him and sucks his moisture; those, I think, the trout breeds himself, and never thrives till he free himself from them, which is when warm weather comes; and then, as he grows stronger, be gets from the dead, still water, into the sharp streams, and the gravel, and there rubs off these worms or lice; and then, as he grows stronger, so he gets him into swifter and swifter streams, and there lies at the watch for any fly or minnow that comes near to him; and he especially loves the May-fly, which is bred of the cod-worm or cadis; and these make the trout bold and lusty, and he is usually fatter and better meat at that end of that month [May] than at any time of the year.

Now you are to know that it is observed, that usually the best trouts are either red or yellow; though some (as the Fordidge trout) be white and yet good; but that is not usual: and it is a note observable, that the female trout hath usually a less head, and a deeper body than the male trout, and is usually the better meat. And note, that a hog-back and a little head to either trout, salmon, or any other fish, is a sign that that fish is in season.

But yet you are to note, that as you see some willows or palm-trees bud and blossom sooner than others do, so some trouts be, in rivers, sooner in season: and as some hollies or oaks are longer before they cast their leaves, so are some trouts in rivers longer before they go out of season.

And you are to note, that there are several kinds of trouts : but these several kinds are not considered but by very few men; for they go under the general name of trouts just as pigeons do, in most places; though, it is certain, there are tame and wild pigeons; and of the tame, there be helmets and runts, and carriers and cropers, and indeed too many to name. Nay, the Royal Society have found and published lately, that there be thirty and three kinds of spiders; and yet all, for aught I know, go under that one general name of spider. And it is so with many kinds of fish, and of trouts