158 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [PART! 



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 con- 

 clude, 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 sum- 

 mer 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 be- 

 comes in a short time to be a living fish : and, as I told you, it 

 is thought 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 costs 

 to make glass hives, and order them in such a manner as to see 

 how bees have bred and made their honeycombs, and how they 



