CYPRINID^E. 171 



water, a bank or other suitable place and is not unlikely, unless well handled, to 

 break the line, for its leathery mouth affords a secure hold for the hook. 



Baits. Lobworms, greaves, green gentles, cheese, caddis worms, &c, it will 

 bite at bees, while this fish is not unfrequently taken in the Thames by anglers 

 spinning for trout. 



Breeding. It spawns in May and June, depositing from 7000 to 8000 ova on 

 the gravel, and which are subsequently covered over with great care by the parent 

 fish. In warm seasons the young hatch from the tenth to the fifteenth day. 

 Bloch believed that the barbel does not breed until towards its fourth or fifth 

 year. Having spawned, the spawners make for the swiftest piece of water they 

 can find, and within a few weeks begin to recover condition again. These fish 

 grow very rapidly. 



Uses. Isinglass is said to be made of its air-bladder in the Volga, a statement 

 possibly, if not probably, erroneous. Yarrell observes that the barbel in the 

 coat of Bar, forms one of the quarterings of the arms of Margaret of Anjou, Queen 

 of Henry VI, the founder of Queen's College, Cambridge. 



As food. Not held in esteem, being very coarse. Ausonius tells us that when 

 it grows old it is not absolutely bad. If so, this is exactly contrary to what occurs 

 in Asia, where the old fish are tough, oily, and strong flavoured. Some poor 

 people are said to employ them as food, having boiled them with a piece of bacon 

 to give them a relish. The roe, when eaten, occasionally, but not invariably (as 

 proved by Bloch), is found to be poisonous. It used to be taken by the country 

 people to induce a purge and a vomit. Sir J. Hawkins observes that the flesh of 

 this fish set up most dangerous choleraic symptoms in one of his servants in 1754, 

 so that he nearly died. Gesner asserts that his life was endangered from eating 

 its flesh. Dame Juliana Berners remarked that, " The barbyll is a sweet fysshe, 

 but it is a quasy meete and perryllous for manny body . . . and yf he be eten 

 rawe he may be cause of manny dethe : whyche hath oft be seen." Badham 

 advises its being boiled in salt and water and eaten cold, after having had a 

 squeeze of lemon juice over it, and he states it to be by no means despicable fare. 

 Its best season is from when it has recovered after breeding until September or 

 October, when frosty weather drives it to its winter quarters. The Jews, having 

 boiled them with vinegar and oil, eat them not only during their White Feasts, 

 but whenever they can obtain them. Bloch therefore, who was a Jew, may be 

 excused for considering it a prejudice rejecting them, although he remarks their 

 flesh is white and of good flavour, and the eggs he has eaten, besides giving them 

 to his family, when not a single person among them was incommoded. That 

 barbel in some localities are good eating is well known (see page 169), but it 

 appears as certain that they are deleterious in other places, while some persons 

 may consume them with impunity, whereas they would be poisonous to others. 



Habitat. Large rivers in the temperate and warm latitudes of Europe, 

 attaining to a considerable size, as 40 or 50 lb. in the Rhine and in the Danube. 



Absent from Scotland and Ireland, although it obtains a place in Brown's 

 Catalogue. 



It is somewhat restricted in its distribution in England. In Yorkshire it is 

 found locally in the rivers of the central plain, except the Derwent and the polluted 

 waters of the Aire, Calder, Dearne, and Don (Yorkshire Vertebrata). It is largely 

 taken at Sheffield. It is abundant in the Trent and in the Thames, but absent 

 from the Severn, although it is asserted that this fish in the time of Queen 

 Elizabeth was one of the forms in the latter river protected by legislation ; 

 consequently, if it existed, it must have died out, as I cannot hear of it there 

 now. Pennant gives its Welsh name. I have already observed that it has been 

 taken in the open tidal waters off Hammersmith, and it is numerous in the 

 Thames from Putney upwards. 



The example figured is 16 inches long, from the Thames, for which I am 

 indebted to Mr. T. Carrington, F.L.s. As to the size this fish attains in this 

 country Jenyns mentions examples up to 2 or 3 ft. long. In 1860, one which 

 weighed upwards of 10 lb. was killed at Richmond. Yarrell observes that the 

 largest fish he could find recorded weighed 15 lb., while a 19 lb. fish is said to 

 have been taken from the Lea in Essex. 



