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 but wantonness; and it is
the 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 a 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, 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 the 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 hotter climate, 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 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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