The Compleat ^Angler 



of bread, curds, grains, or the entrails of chickens or of any fowl or 

 beast that you kill to feed yourselves ; for these afford fish a great 

 relief. He says that frogs and ducks do much harm, and devour 

 both the spawn and the young fry of all fish, especially of the carp ; 

 and I have, besides experience, many testimonies of it. But Lebault 

 allows water-frogs to be good meat, especially in some months, if 

 they be fat : but you are to note that he is a Frenchman ; and we 

 English will hardly believe him, though we know frogs are usually 

 eaten in his country : however, he advises to destroy them and king- 

 fishers out of your ponds ; and he advises not to suffer much shoot- 

 ing at wild fowl ; for that (he says) affrightens, and harms, and 

 destroys the fish. 



Note, that carps and tench thrive and breed best when no other 

 fish is put with them into the same pond ; for all other fish devour 

 their spawn, or at least the greatest part of it. And note, that 

 clods of grass thrown into any pond, feed any carps in summer ; and 

 that garden-earth and parsley thrown into a pond recovers and 

 refreshes the sick fish. And note, that when you store your pond, 

 you are to put into it two or three melters for one spawner, if you 

 put them into a breeding-pond ; but if into a nurse-pond, or feeding 

 pond, in which they will not breed, then no care is to be taken, 

 whether there be most male or female carps. 



It is observed that the best ponds to breed carps are those that be 

 stony or sandy, and are warm and free from wind, and that are not 

 deep, but have willow trees and grass on their sides, over which the 

 water sometimes flows : and note, that carps do more usually breed 

 in marie-pits, or pits that have clean clay-bottoms, or in new ponds, 

 or ponds that lie dry a winter season, than in old ponds that be full 

 of mud and weeds. 



Well, scholar, I have told you the substance of all that either 

 observation, or discourse, or a diligent survey of Dubravius and 

 Lebault hath told me : not that they in their long discourses have 

 not said more ; but the most of the rest are so common observations, 

 as if a man should tell a good arithmetician that twice two is four. 

 I will therefore put an end to this discourse, and we will here sit 

 down and rest us. 



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