THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 143 



at Plumsted in Sussex, a county that abounds more with fish 

 than any in this nation.* 



You may remember that I told you, Gesner says, there are 

 no Pikes in Spain ; and doubtless there was a time, about a 

 hundred or a few more years ago, when there were no Carps in 

 England, as may seem to be affirmed by Sir Richard Baker, in 

 whose Chronicle you may find these verses : 



Hops and Turkeys, Carps and Beer 

 Came into England all in a year.f 



And doubtless, as of sea fish the Herring 1 dies soonest out of 

 the water, and of fresh water fish the Trout, so, except the 

 Eel, the Carp endures most hardness, and lives longest out of 

 his own proper element. And, therefore, the report of the 

 Carp's being brought out of a foreign country into this nation 

 i.s the more probable. 



Carps and Loaches are observed to breed several months in one 

 year, which Pikes and most other fish do not. And this is partly 

 proved by tame and wild Rabbits : as also by some Ducks, 

 which will lay eggs nine of the twelve months, and yet there 

 be other Ducks that lay no longer than about one month. And 

 it is the rather to be believed, because you shall scarce or never 

 take a male Carp without a melt, or a female without a roe, or 

 spawn, and for the most part very 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 that li ve in rivers are taken by men of 

 die 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 



* For proof of this fact, we have the testimony of the author of the Book 

 of Fishing irith Hooke and Line, quarto, Lond. 1590, already mentioned in 

 the Life of Walton, who, though the initials only of his name are given in 

 the title, appears to have been Leonard Mascal, the translator of a book 

 of Planting and G'-affing, quarto, 1589, 1599, and the author of a hook On 

 Cattel, quarto, 1596. Fuller, in his Worthies, Sussex, 113, seems to have 

 confounded these two persons ; the lat'er of whom, in the tract first above- 

 mentioned, speaks of the former by report only ; besides which, they lived 

 at the distance of seventy years from each other, and the author of the book 

 Of Fishing is conjectured to be a Hampshire man. 



f- See in the Life of Walton, hereto prefixed, a passage extracted from 

 the book of Dame Juliana Barnes, whereby it appears that, in her time, 

 there were Carps, though but few, in England. It seems, therefore, that 

 Mr Mascal, of Plumsted, did not first bring hither Carps ; but, as the 

 curious in gardening do by exotic plants, he naturalized this species of fish, 

 and that about the era mentioned in the above distich, " Hops and Turkeys," 

 c. which elsewhere is read thus : 



Hops, Reformation, Turkeys, Carps, and Beer, 

 Came into England all in one year. 



