2Q2 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



the water, and in summer they love the shallowest and 

 sharpest streams ; and love to lurk under weeds, and to feed 

 on gravel against a rising ground, and will root and dig in 

 the sands with his nose like a hog, and there nest himself; 

 yet sometimes he retires to deep and swift bridges, or flood- 

 gates, or weirs, where he will nest himself amongst piles or 

 in hollow places, and take such hold of moss or weeds, that 

 be the water never so swift, it is not able to force him from 

 the place that he contends for. This is his constant custom 

 in summer, when he and most living creatures sport them- 

 selves in the sun ; but at the approach of winter, then he 

 forsakes the swift streams and shallow waters, and by 

 degrees retires to those parts of the river that are quiet and 

 deeper ; in which places, and I think about that time, he 

 spawns, and, as I have formerly told you, with the help of 

 the melter, hides his spawn or eggs in holes, which they 

 both dig in the gravel, and then they mutually labour to 

 cover it with the same sand, to prevent it from being 

 devoured by other fish. 



There be such store of this fish in the river Danube that, 

 Rondeletius says, they may in some places of it, and in 

 some months of the year, be taken by those that dwell near 

 to the river, with their hands, eight or ten load at a time : 

 he says, they begin to be good in May, and that they cease 

 to be so in August ; but it is found to be otherwise in this 

 nation : but thus far we agree with him, that the spawn of 

 a barbel, if it be not poison, as he says, yet that it is dan- 

 gerous meat, and especially in the month of May ; which is 

 SO certain, that Gesner and Gasius declare it had an ill 

 effect upon them, even to the endangering of their lives. 



This fish is of a fine cast and handsome shape, with small 





