CHAP. IX.] THE FOURTH DAT. 209 



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 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, 1 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 nor perch to devour their 

 spawn, 2 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 w r ater-room and good feed, will grow 

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

 much above a yard long. 3 'Tis said, by Jovius 4 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 con- 

 trary, 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 'tis observed too that he lives 

 to the age of a hundred years. And 'tis also observed, that 

 the crocodile is very long-lived, and more than that, that 



1 They do not breed in the long canal in Hampton Court Park, though 

 they grow to a large size in it. I caught two there, which weighed thirty- 

 two pounds. In places where they breed freely, they seldom grow to a 

 large size. ED. 



2 It has been supposed by some that carp will thrive in the same ponds 

 with pike, but there is abundant evidence to the contrary. ED. 



3 The widow of the late Mr. David Garrick 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. There is the skin of one in the British 

 Museum, which I sent there, which weighed when alive twenty-six pounds. 

 It was caught, out of condition, at Pain's Hill, near Cobham. Pennant 

 mentions a carp of twenty pounds ; and in the park of Mr. Ladbroke, of 

 Gatton, a brace was taken which weighed thirty-five pounds. But in 

 general carp in our rivers very rarely reach the weight of six pounds, and 

 as seldom twelve pounds in our ponds. In warmer climates (France, 

 Holland, and Germany) they grow to twenty, thirty, or forty pounds. ED. 



4 Paulus Jovius, an Italian historian, of very doubtful authority; lie 

 lived in the 16th century, and wrote a small tract, "De Romania Piscibus." 

 He died at Florence, 1552. H. 



p 



