THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 147 



CHAPTER IX. 



Observations of the Carp, with Directions how to fish for him. 



PiscATOR. The carp* is the queen of rivers ; a stately, a good, 

 and a very subtle fish, that it was not at first bred, nor hath been 

 long in England, but is now naturalized. It is said they were 



* The carp {Cyprinus Carpio) was known to the ancients, and is spoken 

 of by Aristotle and Pliny ; the former of whom calls it a river fish {Hist. 

 An.iv., 8), and declares that they " spawn five or six times a year, espe- 

 cially at the rising of certain stars " (vi., 14). The Cyprianus of Oppian is 

 evidently a sea fish resembling the carp. There is an allusion to the carp 

 also in Athenseus (vii., 82). Vaniere, the Jesuit, in the xvth book of his 

 Pradium Rusticum (p. 281, ed. 1742), thus derives its name, which agrees 

 with Gesner and Aldrovandus : 



** Cypria nomen 

 Quo Venus ipsa suum pro fertilitatis nomen 

 Imposuit : Carpam Galli vertere vorantes." 



The whole passage is so descriptive of a fish yet so little known to us, but 

 so much spoken of by the English anglers, that I give it in Buncombe's ac- 

 curate translation, published in the Censura Literaria, 1S09 (a few sepa- 

 rate copies were struck off, one of which I am so fortunate as to possess). 



" In either stream the carp contented dwells. 



With plenteous spawn through all the year she swells, 

 And in all places and all seasons breeds, 

 In lakes as well as rivers ; thence proceeds 

 The name of Cyprian, which the Cyprian dame 

 Bestow'd ; the French to Carp have changed the name. 

 Of all the fish that swim the wat'ry mead 

 Not one in cunning can the carp exceed : 

 Sometimes, when nets enclose the stream, she flies 

 To hollow rocks, and there in secret lies. 

 Sometimes the surface of the water skims. 

 And, springing o'er the net, undaunted swims ; 

 Now motionless she lies beneath the flood, 

 Holds by a weed, or sinks into the mud ; 



