sunder than get open his mouth to
separate his chaps. Certes he regardeth neither wolf, bear, nor lion, and
therefore may well be compared with those two dogs which were sent to
Alexander out of India (and procreated as it is thought between a mastiff
and a male tiger, as be those also of Hircania), or to them that are bred
in Archadia, where copulation is oft seen between lions and bitches, as
the lion is in France (as I said) between she wolves and dogs, whereof let
this suffice, sith the further tractation of them doth not concern my
purpose, more than the confutation of Cardan's talk, _De subt._, lib. 10,
who saith that after many generations dogs do become wolves, and
contrariwise, which if it were true, then could not England be without
many wolves: but nature hath set a difference between them, not only in
outward form, but also in inward disposition of their bones, whereof it is
impossible that his assertion can be sound.

CHAPTER XVII.

OF FISH USUALLY TAKEN UPON OUR COASTS.

[1577, Book III., Chapter 10; 1587, Book III., Chapter 3.]

I have in my description of waters, as occasion hath served, treated of
the names of some of the several fishes which are commonly to be found in
our rivers. Nevertheless, as every water hath a sundry mixture, and
therefore is not stored with every kind, so there is almost no house, even
of the meanest boors, which hath not one or more ponds or holes made for
reservation of water unstored with some of them, as with tench, carp,
bream, roach, dace, eels, or such like as will live and breed together.
Certes it is not possible for me to deliver the names of all such kinds of
fishes as our rivers are found to bear; yet, lest I should seem injurious
to the reader in not delivering as many of them as have been brought to my
knowledge, I will not let to set them down as they do come to mind.
Besides the salmon therefore, which are not to be taken from the middest
of September to the middest of November, and are very plentiful in our
greatest rivers, as their young store are not to be touched from mid April
unto Midsummer, we gave the trout, barbel, graile, pout, cheven, pike,
gudgeon, smelt, perch, menan, shrimps, crevises, lampreys, and such like,
whose preservation is provided for by very sharp laws, not only in our
rivers, but also in plashes or lakes and ponds, which otherwise would
bring small profit to the owners, and do much harm by continual
maintenance of idle person