FISHES AND FISHING. 35 



were sold at ten to fifteen roubles per hundred, or 

 £2 5s. to £3 78. 6d. Barbels were valued at forty- 

 roubles per thousand, or £9. — See Travels of Dr. Pallas, 



Four gentlemen, named respectively, Ernes, Atkin- 

 son, Hall, and Moore, on the 9th of August, 1807, in 

 Shepperton Deeps, the two first in one punt, caught 

 forty-two barbel, weight SO^lbs ; the two others, in 

 a second punt, caught forty-five barbel, weight 

 70^1ba. It has been said that two hundred weight of 

 barbel, from one to fifteen pounds each, have been 

 caught with one rod in a day. I think it must 

 have been a long day, not beginning as the above four 

 gentlemen did, between ten and eleven o'clock in the 

 morning. 



A barbel taken in the old river Wey, or in the navi- 

 gation from Weybridge Bridge to Thames Lock, of 

 twenty inches long, will weigh more by a pound, 

 than one of the same length taken in the Thames, 

 and the former is much more firm, fat, and better 

 flavoured than the latter ; this may be accounted for 

 by the great quantity of horse mussels there are in 

 the "Weybridge navigation, and the old river, and 

 thence to Byfleet ; these mussels are of large size, and 

 when they are moving from one place to another 

 they expose so very large a portion of themselves 

 outside their thin shells, which no doubt proves 

 tempting and nutritious food to any fish ; for on the 



d2 



