THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 151 



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 bo 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 lives to the age of a hundred years. And it is 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 a 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 

 should breed in some ponds, and not in others of the same nature 

 for soil and all other circumstances. And as their breeding, so 

 are their decays also very mysterious : I have both read it, and 

 been told by a gentleman of tried honesty, that he has known 

 sixty or more large carps put into several ponds near to a house, 

 where by reason of the stakes in the ponds, and the owner's con- 

 stant being near to them, it was impossible they should be stolen 

 away from him ; and that when he has after three or four years 

 emptied the pond, and expected an increase from them by breed- 

 ing young ones, — for that they might do so, he had, as the rule 

 is, put in three melters for one spawner, — he has, I say after 

 three or four years, found neither a young nor old carp remain- 

 ing. And the like 1 have known of one that has almost watched 

 the pond, and at a like distance of time at the fishing of a pond, 

 found of seventy or eighty large carps not above five or six : and 

 that he had forborne longer to fish the said pond, but that he saw 

 in a hot day in summer, a large carp swim near the top of the 

 water with a frog upon his head, and that he upon that occasion 

 caused his pond to be let dry ; and, I say, of seventy or eighty 

 carps, only found five or six in the said pond, and those very sick 

 and lean, and with every one a frog sticking so fast on the head 



Virgil speaks of in his ardent eulogium, Georgica ii., 159, et seq. The 

 " u" may be the printer's error. — 1m. Ed. 



* The period of gestation is twenty months. — 'im. Ed. 



