240 THE COMPLETE ANGLER* FAfcT 1, 



CHAPTER X. 



Observations on the BREAM, and Directions how to 

 catch him. 



PISCATOR. 



THE Bream, being a t a full growth, is a large and 

 stately fish. He will breed, both in rivers and ponds? 

 but loves, best, to live in ponds, and where, if he likes 

 the water and air, he will grow not only to be. very 

 large, but as fat as a hog. He is by Gesner taken to be 

 more pleasant, or sweet, than wholesome. This fish is 

 long in growing : but breeds exceedingly in a water 

 that pleases him ; yea, in many ponds so fust, as to over- 

 store them, and starve the other fish. 



He is very broad, with a forked tail, and his scales set 

 in excellent order ; he hath large eyes, and a narrow 

 sucking mouth ; he hath two sets of teeth, and a lozenge- 

 like bone, a bone to help his grinding. The melter is 

 observed to have two large melts ; and the female, two 

 large bags of eggs or spawn. 



Gesner reports : that, in Poland, a certain and a great 

 number of large Breams were put into a pond ; which, 

 in the next following* winter, were frozen up into one 

 entire ice, and not one drop of water remaining, nor 

 one of these fish to be found, though they were diligently 

 searched for; and yet, the next spring, when the ice 

 was thawed, and the weather warm, and fresh water 

 got into the pond, he affirms they all appeared again. 

 This Gesner affirms; and I quote my author, because 

 it seems almost as incredible as the resurrection to an. 

 atheist: but it may win something, in point of believing 

 it to him that considers the breeding or renovation of 

 the silk-worm, and of many insects. And THAT is 

 considerable, which Sir Francis Bacon observes in his 

 History of Life and Death, fol. 20. that there be som 



