56 ART OF ANGLING. 



all lizards and water-beetles, which frequently 

 destroy quantities of fry, to the great loss of the 

 owner. A pond of the size of about one acre, 

 requires three or four male Carp, and six or 

 eight females. The best for breeders are five, 

 six, or seven years old, in good health, full scale 

 and without any blemish or wound. Such as 

 are sickly, move not briskly ; have spots, as if 

 they had the small pox, have lost their scales, or 

 have them sticking: loosely to their bodies ; and 

 such whose eyes lie deep in their heads, are 

 short and lean, will never produce a good breed. 

 Being provided with a set of Carp sufficient to 

 stock a pond with, it is best to put them, on a 

 fine calm day, into the spawning pond at the 

 latter end of March or beginning of April. 

 Great care must be taken, during the spawning 

 season, to prevent the approach of all aquatic 

 fowl, wild and tame, to the pond ; for geese 

 and ducks not only swallow the spawn, but de- 

 stroy still more by searching among the weeds 

 and water plants. 



The young fry being hatched from the spawn, 

 by the influence of the sun, they are left the 

 whole summer, and even the next winter, in the 

 spawning pond, in case it be so deep that the 

 suffocation of the young tender fry under the 

 ice, in a severe winter, is not to be apprehend- 

 ed. If however the shallowness of the pond, or 



