THE CARP 53 



during the summer, more particularly in the morning and 

 evening, but as a rule they take more freely towards autumn. 

 The carp-bream are eatable. Some anglers say they are really 

 good fish : perhaps split, salted, and dried is the best way of 

 eating them.* There is an old proverb among the French to the 

 effect that " He who hath bream in his pond may bid his friend 

 welcome." I fancy, " to a day's fishing " should have been 

 added, as I do not think even French cookery could find any- 

 thing worth eulogising in a pond-bream, which is for the most 

 part the bream-flat or silver bream. 



Many spots on the Thames, as Walton, Weybridge, Chertsey, 

 Shepperton, Hampton, Kingston, etc., are or have been 

 famous for bream, and the Come abounds in them in parts. 

 The East India Docks, too, formerly held very fine bream, and 

 many of the waters around London have abundance of them. 

 The midland counties' rivers, as the Trent, Ouse, and the 

 Norfolk streams, are also well stocked with them. 



THE CARP (Cyprinus carpio) 



This cunning member of the carp tribe requires all the 

 angler's skill to delude him, and it will often happen that even 

 after the angler has exhausted his patience and ingenuity, our 

 leathern-mouthed friend will altogether fail to come to hand, 

 or rather to net. Small carp under and up to two pounds are 

 not so difficult to take, but when the angler essays his skill upon 

 the wily old veterans of the pond, it is quite another matter. 

 It is difficult to get carp to look at the bait at all, and when they 

 do they will more often nibble and suck at it, and leave only 

 half of it on the hook, than take it fairly. It is wonderful, too, 

 how soon even small carp get shy if they are much fished for. 

 I remember two ponds in which as a boy I always could take 

 large numbers of carp. In one I once took one of four pounds, 

 though usually they seldom exceeded two or two and a half 

 pounds ; but fish of from one to two pounds I could generally 

 catch in considerable numbers. In the other pond I have taken 

 in one afternoon four that weighed over twenty-two pounds, 

 and could easily catch ten or a dozen or more in one afternoon ; 

 but some years after, when the ponds became more popular and 



* Mr. Greville Fennell, in the columns of the Field, has corrected me in 

 this, and says that the carp-bream are held in high estimation on Trent side. 

 I have never eaten them there, and therefore cantiot offer an opinion ; but 

 the Thames bream are certainly indifferent fare, and very bony. F, F. 



