The explanation may be strange: but it is the only one
which I can offer to explain the fact--which is itself much more
strange--of the burbot being found in the Fen rivers.
Another proof may be found in the presence of the edible frog of the
Continent at Foulmire, on the edge of the Cambridge Fans. It is a
moot point still with some, whether he was not put there by man. It
is a still stronger argument against his being indigenous, that he is
never mentioned as an article of food by the mediaeval monks, who
would have known--Frenchmen, Italians, Germans, as many of them were-
-that he is as dainty as ever was a spring chicken. But if he be
indigenous, his presence proves that once he could either hop across
the Straits of Dover, or swim across the German Ocean.
But there can be no doubt of the next proof--the presence in the Fens
(where he is now probably extinct) and in certain spots in East
Anglia, which I shall take care not to mention, of that exquisite
little bird the 'Bearded Tit' (Calamophilus biarmicus). Tit he is
none; rather, it is said, a finch, but connected with no other
English bird.
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