222 The Fishes of the Lower Wharfe Basin. 
THE BaRBEL, from a sportsman’s point of view, is one of the 
heaviest and the most valuable of the non-migratory fishes. 
found in the Wharfe. They are summer fish and become 
torpid and he together in a compact mass during the colder 
part of the year, and in the deepest water they can find. 
Though specimens have been taken in the Derbyshire Derwent, 
and the Thames, in December, in Wharfedale at any rate it 
is comparatively useless to expect them to take a bait betweem 
October and May. They are exceedingly powerful, and from 
July to September are found in the swiftest and most broken 
water. ‘ 
In the Wharfe it rarely exceeds eight and a-half pounds 
in weight. It spawns in its fourth year, from May to June, 
though this event may be delayed somewhat by extraneous or 
climatic influences. It is a remarkable thing that nothing: 
whatever is known of small Barbel ; during the whole of the 
writer’s experience he has never caught nor known of a specimen 
being caught of less than half-a-pound in weight.* Barbel, 
when young, are by some supposed to live in association with 
Gudgeon; as they grow larger they leave their early com- 
panions and join the parent stock. The fish is gregarious in. 
its habits, and unable to resist the power of strong light. 
At one time it used to be the common practice to take’ advan-- 
tage of this weakness—parties provided with torches and armed 
with suitable spears used to sally forth at night and slay 
large numbers; the streams in consequence soon became: 
denuded of them. This method of capture is still known in 
Wharfedale by the name of ‘ blazing.” The weather cannot be 
too hot, and the water too low for this fish. In August, IgII, a 
year memorable for fine weather, I took one hundredweight 
and a half of Barbel in four days’ fishing. 
In Yorkshire this fish is confined to the rivers of the central 
plain, and Day mentions that it was largely taken at Sheffield. - 
We doubt if this is the case now. He also states that it is not 
found in the Yorkshire Derwent, in spite of the fact that at 
Bubwith very fine specimens have been captured within recent 
years. It can be caught from Poole downwards, and the lower 
portions of the rivers yield the heaviest fish. 
In 1912, great quantities of fish of all kinds were destroyed 
the Wharfe, between Ilkley and Ben Rhydding, by an 
accidental discharge of gas liquor, as already referred to in this. 
journal. Among the number of dead were five Barbel, 
weighing from four to six pounds apiece. Their presence in 
the river at this point had, up to then, remained quite un- 
suspected. The Strid is likely to contain Barbel, but we 
* T have several times caught small Barbel the size of a good Gudgeon, 
and, in every case,-in Gudgeon swims.—R. F. 
Naturalist. 
