148 THE COMPLETE ANGLEH. 



much, and especially all the summer season. And it is 

 observed that they breed more naturally in ponds than in 

 running waters, if they breed there at all ; and that those 

 live in rivers are taken by men of the best palates to be 

 much the better meat. 



And it is observed, that in some ponds carps will not breed, 

 especially in cold ponds; but where they will breed they breed 

 innumerably : Aristotle and Pliny say six times in a year, if 

 there be no pikes or pearch to devour their spawn, when it is 

 cast upon grass, or flags, or weeds, where it lies ten or twelve 

 days before it be enlivened. 



The carp, if he have water room and good feed, will grow 

 to a very great bigness and length ; I have heard, to be 

 much above a yard long.* It is said by Jovius, who hath 

 writ of fishes, that in the lake Lurian in Italy, carps have 

 thriven to be more than fifty pounds weight ; which is the 

 more probable, for as the bear is conceived and born sud- 

 denly, and being born, is but short-lived, so, on the contrary, 

 the elephant is said to be two years in his dam's belly, some 

 think he is ten years in it, and being born, grows in bigness 

 twenty years ; and it is observed, too, that he lives to the age 

 of a hundred years. And it is also observed that the cro- 

 codile is very long-lived, and more than that, that all that 

 long life he thrives in bigness; and so I think some carps do, 

 especially in some places ; though I never saw one above 

 twenty-three inches, which was a great and a goodly fish ; 

 but have been assured there are of a far greater size, and in 

 England too.t 



Now, as the increase of carps is wonderful for their num- 

 ber, so there is not a reason found out, I think, by any, why 

 they should breed in some ponds, and not in others of the 

 same nature for soil and all other circumstances. And as 

 their breeding, so are their decays also very mysterious : I 

 have both read it, and been told by a gentleman of tried 

 honesty, that he has known sixty or more large carps put 

 into several ponds near to a house, where, by reason of the 

 stakes in the ponds, and the owner's constant being near to 



* The widow of the late Mr. David Garrick, of Druiy-lane Theatre, once told 

 me, that in her native country, -Germany, she had seen the head of a carp 

 served up at table, big enough to fill a large dish. H. 



t The author of the " Angler's Sure Guide" says, that he has taken carp 

 above twenty-six inches long in rivers ; and adds, that they are often seen in 

 England above thirty inches long. 



