CHAt>. ix. THE FOURTH DAY. tig 



you three or four more short observations of the carp; and then 

 fall upon some directions how you shall fish for him. 



The age of carps is by Sir Francis Bacon, in his History of 

 Life and Death, observed to be but ten years; yet others think 

 they live longer. Gesner says a carp has been known to live in 

 the Palatinate above a hundred years : but most conclude that, 

 contrary to the pike or luce, all carps are the better for age and 

 bigness. The tongues of carps are noted to be choice and 

 costly meat, especially to them that buy them : but Gesner says 

 carps have no tongue like other fish, but a piece of flesh-like 

 fish in their mouth like to a tongue, and should be called a 

 palate: but it is certain it is choicely good; and that the carp is 

 to be reckoned amongst those leather-mouthed fish, which I 

 told you have their teeth in their throat, and for that reason he 

 is very seldom lost by breaking his hold, if your hook be once 

 stuck into his chaps. 



I told you that Sir Francis Bacon thinks that the carp lives 

 but ten years : but Janus Dubravius has writ a book, Of Fish 

 and Fish-ponds^ in which he says that carps begin to spawn at 

 the age of three years, and continue to do so till thirty : he says 

 also, that in the time of their breeding, which is in summer, 

 when the sun hath warmed both the earth and water, and so 

 apted them also for generation, that then three or four male 

 carps will follow a female : and that then, she putting on a 

 seeming coyness, they force her through weeds and flags, where 

 she lets fall her eggs or spawn, which sticks fast to the weeds ; 

 and then they let fall their melt upon it, and so it becomes in a 

 short time to be a living fish: and, as I told you, it is thought 

 that the carp does this several months in the year. And most 

 believe that most fish breed after this manner, except the eel. 

 And it has been observed, that when the spawner has weakened 

 herself by doing that natural office, that two or three melters 

 have helped her from off the weeds, by bearing her up on both 

 sides, and guarding her into the deep. And you may note, that 

 though this may seem a curiosity not worth observing, yet others 

 have judged it worth their time and cost to make glass hives, 

 and order them in such a manner as to see how bees have bred 



