CHUB. 227 



chiefly found in clear and rapid rivers, being a fish 

 of a strong nature, and swimming very swiftly : it 

 generally frequents the deepest parts of the water, 

 and is of a shy or timid disposition : it spawns in 

 the months of March and April. According to 

 Bloch, the Chub weighs from five to eight pounds : 

 those of British growth however are very rarely 

 equal in point of size to those found in many other 

 parts of Europe. The young are said to be of slow 

 growth ; scarcely arriving at a greater length than 

 three inches in the space of the first year. The 

 Chub is generally considered as a coarse, unpalat- 

 able fish, and is apt to acquire a yellowish cast on 

 boiling 5 for which reason it is held in no esteem 

 at our tables. Walton however, in his well-known 

 work The Complete Angler, gives us a receipt for 

 dressing it in such a manner as to form no un^ 

 pleasant repast. 



" The Chub (says he), though he eat well thus 

 drest, yet as he is usually drest, he does not : he is 

 objected against, not only for being full of small 

 forked bones, disperst through all his body, but 

 that he eats watrish, and that the flesh of him is 

 not firm, but short and tasteless. The French 

 esteem him so mean, as to call him Un Villain; 

 nevertheless he may be so drest as to make him very 

 good meat ; as namely, if he be a large Chub, then 

 dress him thus. 



" First, scale him, and then wash him clean, 

 and then take out his guts ; and to that end make 

 the hole as little and as near to his gills as you 

 may conveniently, and especially make clean his 



