'The Compleat <Angler 



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 constant being near to them, it 

 was impossible they should be stole away from him ; and that when 

 he has, after three or four years, emptied the pond, and expected an 

 increase from them by breeding 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 remaining. And the like I have known of one that had almost 

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

 pond, found, of seventy or eighty large carps, not above five or six ; 

 and that he had foreborne 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 Jean, 

 and with every one a frog sticking so fast on the head of the said 

 carps, that the frog would not be got off without extreme force or 

 killing. And the gentleman that did affirm this to me, told me he 

 saw it ; and did declare his belief to be (and I also believe the same) 

 that he thought the other carps, that were so strangely lost, were so 

 killed by the frogs, and then devoured. 



And a person of honour, now living in Worcestershire, assured me 

 he had seen a necklace or collar of tadpoles, hang like a chain or neck- 

 lace of beads about a pike's neck, and to kill him ; whether it be for 

 meat or malice must be to me a question. 



But I am fallen into this discourse by accident, of which I might 

 say more, but it has proved longer than I intended, and possibly may 

 not to you be considerable ; I shall therefore give you three or four 

 more short observations of the carp, and then fall upon some directions 

 how you shall fish for him. 



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