THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 193 



a seeming coyness, they force her through weeds 

 and flags, where she lets fall her eggs or spawn, 

 which sticks fast to the weeds, and then they let 

 fall their melt upon it, and so it becomes in a 

 short time to be a living fish ; and, as I told you, 

 it is thought the carp does this several months in 

 the year ; and most believe that most fish breed 

 after this manner, except the eel. And it has been 

 observed that when the spawner has weakened 

 herself by doing that natural office, that two or 

 three melters have helped her from off the weeds 

 by bearing her up on both sides and guarding her 

 into the deep. And you may note that though 

 this may seem a curiosity not worth observing, yet 

 others have judged it worth their time and costs 

 to make glass hives, and order them in such a 

 manner as to see how bees have bred and make 

 their honeycombs, and how they have obeyed 

 their king and governed their commonwealth. 

 But it is thought that all carps are not bred by 

 generation, but that some breed other ways, as 

 some pikes do. 



The physicians make the galls and stones in the 

 heads of carps to be very medicinable. But 't is 

 not to be doubted but that in Italy they make 

 great profit of the spawn of carps by selling it to 

 the Jews, who make it into red caviare, the Jews 

 not being by their law admitted to eat of caviare 

 made of the sturgeon, that being a fish that wants 

 scales, and, as may appear in Levit. xi. 10, by 

 them reputed to be unclean. 



