THE GUDGEON. 91 



bloodworms, they being an exceedingly favourite article of diet, and not 

 at all likely to soil the water, it being their native element. Gudgeon 

 are gregarious, and are in many parts of the rivers of England so 

 plentiful as to obscure the ground whereon they lie. They seem to thrive 

 best in the Trent, the Hampshire Avon, and the Thames. It is an error 

 into which Mr. Pennell falls in supposing that gudgeon will not thrive 

 in still water ; on the contrary, I have known them to attain a size in. 

 still water much beyond that of the ordinary run of Thames fish. Their 

 development in still water seems slightly different to that in a stream, 

 the body becoming abbreviated, and the movements less rapid and 

 vivacious. This alteration seems, however, to be peculiar to all stream 

 fish introduced into still water. 



Our little friend gobio seems to have been a well-considered fish 

 from very early times. Ovid mentions him and remarks on his slipperi- 



ness : 



Lubricus et spina nocuus nongobrus ulla. 



Ausonius also has a word for him, and in the translation of the Latin, 

 ode to Walton is the passage : 



The little gudgeon'p thoughtless haste 

 fields a brief but sweet repaat. 



A piscatory poet, writing about 150 years ago, also refers to his eager 

 haste to shuffle off the mortal coil : 



Few lessons will the angler's use supply 

 Where he's so ready of himself to die. 



Eeferring to this quality of the gudgeon, which, by the way, must 

 be taken cumgrano salis, Shakespeare uses the phrase through one of 

 his characters of " fool gudgeon," whence probably Sir Walter Scott's 

 expression in connection with a person " gudgeoned " out of opportunities 

 given him. Hence the word became a verb, and Swift defines a human 

 gudgeon as a person easily ensnared. But Hood, in his "Angler's 

 Lament," seems to take a different view of the ravenous disposition of 



the fish. Thus: 



At a brandling once gudgeons would gape, 



But they seem to have altered their forms now. 

 Have they taken advice of the Council of Nice, 



And rejected the Diet of Worms now? 



Gray, however, reverts to the Shakespearean opinion that the gudgeon is 



a " fool." He says : 



What gudgeons are we men, 

 Every woman's easy prey ! 

 Though we've felt the hook, again 

 We bite, and they betray. 



And Dr. Badham says, "A gudgeon is as incapable of refusing a young 

 brandling when it falls in his way as a lion a succulent kid." 



