BARBEL. 29 



parent fishes, and that they are vivified in a warm season between the ninth and fifteenth 

 days. Couch says the spawn is discharged in a string, and entwined round some fixed object, 

 as a stone or weed. Gasner says that the Barbel opposite his house, situated near the 

 Danube, spawn at the beginning of August. Siebold mentions May and June as the months. 

 The roe is supposed to be poisonous. Gesner quotes several old writers who affirm that 

 from experiments made on themselves the roe has proved injurious as food ; this appears to 

 be alluded to in the Book of St. Albans, where it is said, "The Barbyll is a swete fysshe, 

 bat it is a quasi meete and a perilous for mannys body. For comynly he yeyjth an intro- 

 duxion to ye Febres. And yf he be eten rawe, he maye be cause of mannys death ; whyche 

 hath oft been seen." Sir John Hawkins, in a note of his edition of the Complete Angler, 

 says that even the flesh of the Barbel is deleterious, for a servant of his, who had eaten 

 part of the fish, but not the roe, "was seized with such a violent purging and vomiting as 

 had like to have cost him his life." On the other hand, Bloch asserts that both himself 

 and some members of his family ate of a considerable portion of Barbel roe without anv 

 disagreeable results. It is possible that in some cases the effect may be due to idiosyncrasy, 

 or a peculiar disposition of the individual who partook of the roe, but at the same time it 

 is not unlikely that Barbel roe may be, in itself, injurious when eaten. In the time of Sir 

 John Hawkins, Barbel roe used to be taken by country people medicinally, as an emetic and 

 a cathartic. Siebold {Die Siisseii.vasscrfisckc, p. no) on this point writes: "It is strange that 

 although people have of old been warned against eating the spawn of the Barbel, and that 

 frequent e.xperiences still often occur, resulting in vomiting and diarrhoea, \\\. is strange) that 

 no one has set himself the task of investigating scientifically the spawn of this common fish 

 with a view to test its poisonous effects." Siebold's work, quoted here, bears date 1863. I 

 know not whether since this time any attempts have been made to investigate this matter. 



The Barbel, says Yarrell, in the Coat of Bar, forms one of the quarterings of the arms 

 of Margaret of Anjou, queen of Henr\- the Sixth. These arms are beautifully painted in 

 glass in the windows of a curious old manor-house at Ockwell, in Berkshire, on the banks 

 of the Thames ; thus a sort of historic interest, as Badham obser\'es, attaches to this fish. 



The flesh of the Barbel is generally pronounced to be poor and insipid; the only way 

 to make these fish eatable, according to Mr. Manley, is to salt and dry them, "and even 

 then," he says, "they are not much better than the bark of a tree would be subjected to 

 a similar process." But Dr. Badham begs to assure citizen anglers, and others who may be 

 incredulous, that these fish, simply boiled in salt and water, and eaten cold, with a squeeze 

 of lemon-juice, will be found by no means despicable fare; he particularly commends "the 

 head and its appurtenances." 



The form of the Barbel is rather long, and narrow at the back ; the length of the head, 

 which is decidedly pig-like in form, is one fourth of the whole, not including the tail ; snout 

 much produced, lips thick ; there are no mouth-teeth, but there are the usual throat-teeth 

 of this family; eyes small; a pair of barbs above the upper lip, and one at each corner 

 of the mouth; colour of the back greenish brown or bluish, sides yellowish, white below; 

 tail deeply forked. 



The fin-ray formula is as follows: — 



Dorsal II. 

 Pectoral 16. 

 Ventral — 10. 

 Anal 8. 



The specimen figured was procured from the Thames near Oxford; I am indebted to 

 Mr. William Hine, of the Anatomical Department, Museum, Oxford, for a fine specimen for 

 examination. 



