76 THE CARP. 



renewed the experiment, and am willing to admit that 

 they are by no means bad farcing. I do not think, how- 

 ever, even French cookery could find anything worth eulo- 

 gising 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, Teddington, 

 &c. are or have been famous for bream, and the Colne, 

 Wey and Mole abound 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. Dear old Dame Juliana 

 says ' he is an euyll (evil) fysshe to take,' and she is not far 

 wrong; but she adds that ' there ben but fewe in Englande,' 

 so that in her day they had not long been introduced. 

 She calls him ' deyntous' too, in which I cannot coincide. 

 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 



