250 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [PART I. 



sands with his nose like a hog, and there nests himself: yet 

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

 gates, or wears, 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 

 Bondeletius 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. 1 

 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 

 dangerous meat, and especially in the month of May; 

 which is so certain, that Gesner and Gasius 2 declare, it had 

 an ill effect upon them, even to the endangering of their 

 lives. 3 



1 In winter they assemble under roots of trees, or a sunken boat, &c., 

 and are then so torpid, that the fishermen tell me they can push them 

 about with a punt-pole. Darcy, a music-seller at Oxford, is mentioned in 

 the "New Monthly Magazine," (1820, p. 11,) as having'taken barbel by 

 diving in a deep hole near the Four Streams. He said that many of these 

 fish lay with their heads against the bank in parallel lines, like horses in 

 their stalls. They were not disturbed at his approach, but allowed him to 

 come close, and select the finest of them. Barbel of fourteen or sixteen 

 pounds in weight have been taken in the Thames. ED. 



3 Antonius Gazius, of Padua, a physician, who wrote a treatise ' ' De 

 Conservatione Sanitatis," in which there is a chapter on the qualities of 

 river fish as food. It was first published at Venice, 1491. He died in 

 1530. See Jocher, Moreri, &c. ED. 



3 Though the spawn of the barbel is known to be of a poisonous nature, 

 yet it is often taken by country people medicinally, who find it at once a 



