46 ANGLING. 



The barbel, though he is not given to make desperate 

 and quick rushes, like the salmon or trout, often makes a 

 longer and more stubborn resistance, and if he gets near 

 the boat will often double round the punt pole. An 

 angler with a good fish round a punt pole is an instructive 

 sight, and it not unfrequently causes him to utter naughty 

 words. They are poor eating, though the fishermen use 

 them by splitting them up, taking out the backbone, and 

 frying them. I have tried them, but they are watery, 

 bony beasts, and, unless you belong to a club or want to 

 show them, they are hardly worth bringing home. I 

 generally return all under 41b. unless I have someone to 

 give them to who wants them ; and I wish everybody did 

 the same, it would be better for sport. Barbel are a 

 widely distributed fish, and are found throughout the south 

 of Europe, in Prance, Spain, Germany, and Prussia, many 

 being in the rivers of the Crimea. 



THE BREAM (Cyprinus brama). 



The French say that " he who has bream in his pond 

 may bid his friend welcome." I was sceptical on this for 

 a long time, having once tasted some that were by no 

 means desirable ; but since then I have tried them from a 

 gravelly reach of the Thames, and found them very 

 palatable, and no doubt with French cookery they might 

 be made very good indeed. The bream usually prefers a 

 deep hole or eddy to a stream, though occasionally they 

 are taken in both, and it is not unusual to take bream and 

 barbel in the same swim, and I have more than once seen 

 a bream and a barbel on two rods side by side at the same 

 time. They are fond of a deep hole under a shady tree. 

 In the Norfolk rivers and broads, which are the great 



