CHAP. IX. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 235 



buy them : but Gesner says, Carps have no tongue 

 like other fish, but a piece of flesh-like fish in their 

 mouth like to a tongue, and should be called a palate: 

 But it is certain it is choicely good: and that the 

 Carp is to be reckoned amongst those leather- mouthed 

 fish which, I told you, have their teeth in their 

 throat; and for that reason, he is very seldom lost 

 by breaking his hold, if your hook be once stuck into 

 his chaps. 



I told you that Sir Francis Bacon thinks, that the 

 Carp lives but ten years : but Janus Dubravius has 

 writ a book Of fish andfishponds*, in which he says$ 

 that Carps begin to spawn at the age of three years, 

 and continue to do so till thirty : he says also, that in 

 the time of their breeding, which is in summer when 

 the sun hath warmed both the earth arid water, and so 

 apted, them also, for generation that, then, three or 

 four male Carps will follow a female ; and that, then, 

 she putting on 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 made their honey-combs, 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 it is not 



