222 THE COMPLETE ANGLES. 



brood carp, 20 brood tench, and 20 brood jack; thus making 10 per cent, 

 each of tench and jack to the carp ; the brood must be all of one season's 

 spawn. Therefore to three acres there will be 600 carp, 60 tench, and 

 60 jack, and the succession ponds are to be stocked in like proportions, 

 the second the year following- the first, and the third again a year later, 

 so that each pond then comes round in its turn to be fished 



" In stocking ponds it must be strictly observed that the jack, carp, 

 and tench be all of the same season or spring spawn ; and the period for 

 brooding the pond is towards the end of October, or if the season be open 

 and inild, early in November, for the following reasons. Carp and tench 

 being fish of the same habits, they slam or mud at the same period, 

 lying torpid through the winter months, so that they keep secure from 

 the attacks of the juvenile jack ; the jack at that age finds sufficient 

 food in worms, etc., to subsist upon : as the spring advances, when the 

 carp and tench leave their winter lairs, the jack then in turn become 

 sickly as their spawning season approaches, and consequently do not 

 annoy the carp, much less the tench ; this brings them through April, 

 when the jack spawn, and they remain quiet from that time until the wet 

 season in July. 



" In June both the carp and tench spawn, and although in very small 

 casts for the first season, yet they are far larger than would be beneficial 

 for the stews were no jack in them ; and from this period the jack 

 becomes useful, for as he gets more and more vigorous, so does he keep 

 down the brood and thrive himself: thus by making an easy prey, it 

 seldom if ever occurs that a jack chases a carp of his own age ; the result 

 is, that through the clearance of the brood the stock finds sufficient food 

 to live and thrive upon. 



" There are two species of weeds which are requisite in your ponds, 

 and on which carp and tench spawn ; the one is Potamogeton natans, 

 or broad-leaved pond-weed, sometimes called tench- weed ; the other is 

 Ranunculus aquatilis or water crow-foot. Against the former, during 

 the period of casting their spawn, they rub themselves, either from an 

 exciting or soothing cause, but they invariably discharge the ova on the 

 crow-foot, which is a long wiry weed, forming at intervals circles of fine 

 leaves : from its toughness and close foliage it protects the spawn and 

 young fry from the attacks of birds of prey. I think it is by means of 

 this weed that wild fowl convey different species of fish from one pond to 

 another, in consequence of the gelatinous nature of the ova causing them 

 to adhere to the feathers of the bird while feeding, and this will account 

 for fish being found in waters where none of the sort had been stored. 

 Wild fowl are particularly fond of spawn ; they destroy much of it, and 

 seek the weeds encumbered with it. It is among these weeds that the 

 fry are partially protected when they emerge from the ova ; for like 

 everything produced from creation's lot, in the early stage of life being 

 perfectly helpless, so do they swim, or more properly, float about, for three 

 or four days with the shell of the ova attached to them, showing a simi- 

 larity to the umbilical cord in animals, after which it falls ofi^ and then 

 the brood instinctively move in a shoal to the scours, for the protection 

 against other fish afforded by the shallow water, as well as on account of 



