TQE CHUB. 39 



a good-sized one. The chub is found in most of the rivers 

 of England, and likes deep, quiet holes, under overhanging 

 banks, or willow bushes, the foundations of old walls, re- 

 tired nooks, or where old piles and posts stick up out of the 

 water, providing the water is tolerably deep, though he is 

 not confined exclusively to such places as those. He will be 

 found in strong rushing streams, and contending with the 

 most rapid waters ; and during very hot weather they may 

 be seen basking on the surface of the water, over some deep 

 hole, sometimes in considerable numbers. The moment they 

 become sensible that some one is looking at them, down they 

 sink to the bottom in an instant, being perhaps, with scarcely 

 any exception, the shyest of all fish. They spawn about the 

 first or second week in May, and deposit their eggs on the 

 gravel in very shallow water, and the operation is supposed 

 to occupy them about ten days. The chub is a gross feeder, 

 and will take kindly to almost anything in the shape of a 

 bait, if it is only delicately offered him. He will swallow 

 worms by the hundred, devour any amount of scratchings, 

 gobble up all your ground bait, and still wish for more, even 

 if that same bait happens to be rotten cheese ; and I have 

 read that the French fish for them with a i?ipe cherry. He 

 will take almost anything, from a fly to a small frog, or from 

 a grain of creed wheat to a bunch of lob-worms ; and I have 

 known him even to dash at a spoon bait when pike fishing ; 

 but whether this is done in sheer greediness or not I cannot 

 say. His bill of fare is a very lengthy one ; nothing seems 

 to come amiss if he is only in a biting humour. He will 

 take the artificial fly or natural insect on the surface ; a 

 bunch of lob- worms from the bottom, or gentles and grubs 

 from midwater ; while the black slug, a small frog, cheese, 

 pith, paste, or scratchings, all come to swell the list of at- 

 tractions for our leather-mouthed friend the chub. At 

 nearly all seasons he will bite ; hot weather or cold makes no 



