142 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [PART i. 



male Carp without a melt, or a female without a roe or spawn, 

 and for the most part very much, and especially all the summer 

 season ; and it is observed, that they breed more naturally in 

 ponds than in running waters, if they breed there at all ; and that 

 those that live in rivers are taken by men of the best palates to be 

 much the better meat. 



And it is observed that in some ponds Carps will not breed, 

 especially in cold ponds ; but where they will breed, they breed 

 innumerably : Aristotle and Pliny say, six times in a year, if there 

 be no Pikes nor Perch to devour their spawn, when it is cast upon 

 grass or flags, or weeds, where it lies ten or twelve days before it 

 be enlivened. 



The Carp, if he have water-room and good feed,* will grow to 

 a very great bigness and length ; I have heard, to be much above 

 a yard long.f It is said by Jovius,| who hath writ of fishes, that 

 in the Lake Lurian in Italy, Carps have thriven to be more than 

 fifty pounds weight : which is the more probable, for as the bear 

 is conceived and born suddenly, and being born is but short lived ; 

 so, on the contrary, the elephant is said to be two years in his 

 dam's belly, some think he is ten years in it, and being born, 

 grows in bigness twenty years ; and it is observed too, that he 

 Jives to the age of a hundred years. And 'tis also observed, that 

 the crocodile is very long lived ; and more than that, that all that 

 long life he thrives in bigness ; and so I think some Carps do, 

 especially in some places, though I never saw one above twenty- 

 three inches, which was a great and goodly fish ; but have been 

 assured there are of a far greater size, and in England too. 



Now, as the increase of Carps is wonderful for their number, 

 so there is not a reason found out, I think, by any, why they 



* The following receipt for making a Carp fat in gravelly water is taken from Lord 

 Burleigh's Papers, Lansd. MS. No. 101, art. 9: " The carpe (which coveteth to lye in 

 the mudde and will fat soonest in muddy or claye waters) so where the waters be 

 gravillie would be placed in the smallest pondes and stewes and made fatt with chippins 

 or graynes, or with the bloude of any slaughter beaste, or newe horse donnge hanged in 

 basketts, or with a mixture of the said dunge and clay wroughte together in fashion of a 

 Ion ge^salte stone with dyverse holes in the same, laied in the water for them to sucke on." 



t The widow of the late David Garrick once told me, that in her native country, Italy, 

 she had seen the head of a Carp served up at table, big enough to fill a large dish. H. 



t Paulus Jovius, an Italian historian of very doubtful authority : he lived in the i6th 

 century ; and wrote a small tract De Romanis Piscibus. He died at Florence, 

 1552. H. 



_ The author of the Anglers Sure Guide says, that he has taken Carp above twenty- 

 six inches long in rivers ; and adds that they are often seen in England above thirty 

 inches long. The usual length is from about twelve to fifteen or sixteen inches. H. 



The largest Carp mentioned by Pennant did not exceed twenty pounds. In the park 

 of Mr Ladbroke of Gatton, a brace were taken which weighed thirty-five pounds. In 

 a piece of water at Stourhead, a Carp was caught in 1793, which was thirty inches long, 

 upwards of twenty-two broad, and eighteen pounds in weight. 



