Wharton, a man of great learning
and experience, and of equal freedom to communicate it; one that loves
me and my art; one to whom I have been beholden for many of the
choicest observations that I have imparted to you. This good man, that
dares do anything rather than tell an untruth, did, I say, tell me he had
lately dissected one strange fish, and he thus described it to me:
"This fish was almost a yard broad, and twice that length; his mouth
wide enough to receive, or take into it, the head of a man; his stomach,
seven or eight inches broad. He is of a slow motion; and usually lies or
lurks close in the mud; and has a moveable string on his head, about a
span or near unto a quarter of a yard long; by the moving of which,
which is his natural bait, when he lies close and unseen in the mud, he
draws other smaller fish so close to him, that he can suck them into his
mouth, and so devours and digests them."
And, scholar, do not wonder at this; for besides the credit of the relator,
you are to note, many of these, and fishes which are of the like and
more unusual shapes, are very often taken on the mouths of our sea
rivers, and on the sea shore. And this will be no wonder to any that have
travelled Egypt; where, 'tis known, the famous river Nilus does not only
breed fishes that yet want names, but, by the overflowing of that river,
and the help of the sun's heat on the fat slime which the river leaves on
the banks when it falls back into its natural channel, such strange fish
and beasts are also bred, that no man can give a name to; as Grotius in
his Sopham, and others, have observed.
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