26? 



stantly darted at and bolted, they are as quickly 

 rejected. The fisherman's duty is very exten- 

 sive : he not only plies the net and heaves the 

 line during two or three days every week to sup- 

 ply food for the prisoners in the pond, but he has 

 to keep up the stock, and to select the finest and 

 fatest in his preserve for his master's table. 

 Sand eels, broken crabs and limpits, form their 

 general fare ; the former are given ra'w, but the 

 latter are boiled to separate them from their 

 shells. When ploughing the deep the fisher- 

 man keeps a tub of water in his Jboat, in which, 

 when not much hurt, he places any individuals 

 he may desire to imprison in the pond ; and 

 soon a great change comes over them, for they 

 grow fat, and rapidly increase in size and deli- 

 cacy a proof that they are not so well supplied 

 when roaming unrestrained among their native 

 deeps and caverns. A selection is easily made 

 of any one fish that may be required, for all take 

 greedily at a baited hook, from which they may 

 be released and restored to the water, without 

 injury, until the desired individual is obtained.* 

 Although rare with us, salt water ponds were 

 common among the Romans, in which were bred 

 sea trouts, soles, john-dories, and shell fish of va- 

 rious kinds. Lucullus, in order to let in sea 

 water to one of his preserves, had a mountain 

 cut through ; and in this preserve, at his death, 

 were so many fishes, that Cato, his trustee, sold 

 them for thirty-two thousand pounds sterling. 



* M'Diarmid's Sketches from Nature. 



