92 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 



some do thinke they would be as well in other rivers and 

 running waters, as Huntingdon, Ware, and such like, if those 

 waters were replenished as they may be with small charge. 

 They have such a plentie in the fenne brookes, they feed their 

 hogges with them. If other rivers were stored with them, it 

 would be good for the common wealth, as the Carpe which 

 came of late yeares into England. Thus much for the fenne 

 poult." 



At the present day the burbot is not known to survive in 

 the Thames system. It is a strange thing that it should have 

 disappeared, and Mr. Keene's mention of the capture of one in 

 the Wey suggests the possibility of the species still lingering 

 in its ancient haunts, shielded from observation by its retiring 

 and nocturnal habits. Plot, in his Natural History of Stafford- 

 shire (1686), mentions the burbot, but says that it is called, 

 *' from the oddness of the shape and rarity of meeting them, 

 the Non-such ; there having never been but four (that I 

 could hear of) found within memory." Yet it is certain 

 that there were plenty of burbot in Staffordshire waters in 

 the seventeenth century, as there are in the Penk and other 

 tributaries of the Trent at this day. At all events, this 

 fish is strictly limited in range within Britain to certain 

 eastward-flowing rivers, once connected with the great Rhine 

 system. 



Were we as a nation more careful than we are to develop 

 the natural resources of our waters, the burbot would undoubt- 

 edly repay care in its propagation, for it would thrive at the 

 expense of less valuable fish in many ponds and lakes now 

 exclusively inhabited by inferior fish. It is equally at home in 

 running and still waters, and would probably pick up a living 

 wherever eels can do so. 



A word of warning as to the use of fishes in general for 

 food may be appropriately spoken before dismissing the burbot. 

 To enter into the life-histories of the internal parasites of fish 

 would extend this work far beyond the limits assigned to it ; 



