144 THE COMPLETE ANOLER. PART I. 



The Carp, if he have water-room and good feed, will 

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

 much above a yard long. 1 It is said by Jovius, 5 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 suddenly, 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 

 'tis also observed, that the crocodile is very long-liv'd ; 

 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 goodly fish ; but have been assured 

 there are of a far greater size, and in England too. 3 



Now, as the increase of Carps is wonderful for their 

 number, 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 circum- 

 stances. 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 them, it was impossi- 

 ble they should be stole away from him ; and that when 



(I) A lady now living, the widow of the late Mr. David Garrick, of Dniry- 

 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. 



(2) Paulu* Jovius, an Italian historian of very doubtful authority : he lived 

 in the l6th century ; and wrote a small tract DC Romanis Piscibut. He died 

 at Florence. 1552. 



(S) 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 

 aboT* thirty inches long. The usual length is from about twelve co fifteen or 

 sixteen inches. 



