THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 269 



English will hardly believe him, though we know 

 frogs are usually eaten in his country : however, 

 he advises to destroy them and king-fishers out of 

 your ponds. And he advises not to suffer much 

 shooting at wild-fowl ; for that, he says, affrightens 

 and harms and destroys the fish. 



Note that carps and tench thrive and breed best 

 when no other fish is put with them into the same 

 pond ; for all other fish devour their spawn, or 

 at least the greatest part of it. And note that 

 clods of grass thrown into any pond feed any carps 

 in summer, and that garden-earth and parsley 

 thrown into a pond recovers and refreshes the sick 

 fish. And note that when you store your pond, 

 you are to put into it two or three melters for one 

 spawner, if you put them into a breeding-pond j 

 but if into a nurse-pond, or feeding-pond, in 

 which they will not breed, then no care is to 

 be taken whether there be most male or female 

 carps. 



It is observed that the best ponds to breed carps 

 are those that be stony or sandy, and are warm 

 and free from wind, and that are not deep, but 

 have willow-trees and grass on their sides, over 

 which the water does sometimes flow ; and note 

 that carps do more usually breed in marie-pits, or 

 pits that have clean clay-bottoms, or in new ponds, 

 or ponds that lie dry a winter -season, than in old 

 ponds that be full of mud and weeds. 



Well, scholar, I have told you the substance of 

 all that either observation or discourse or a dili- 



