284 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 



in a net (of not too small meshes) suspended about a foot 

 from the bottom. When all is sucked away but the clay, put 

 fresh in the net or nets.' 



This recipe is said to have been used by the old monks ; 

 but the chronicler adds, ' Now, how the carp are to suck away 

 the barley meal and chalk leaving the clay behind, appears 

 difficult to understand.' This' seems a pertinent question. 

 Probably wheaten or other flour would be a better ingredient 



A hundred — a hundred and fifty — even two hundred have 

 been stated as the number of years attained by the carp undet 

 the most favourable circumstances. Supposing, however, that 

 this should be an exaggeration, there is no doubt that many of 

 the fish which were introduced into the ponds at Versailles, 

 &c., in the reign of Louis XIV. (say 1690), are either still living, 

 or were so a very short time before the Revolution of 1830* 

 Dr. Smith, in his ' Tour to the Continent,' mentions them, and 

 observes that they had grown white through age, a fact partially 

 confirmed by my friend, Mr. R. W. Stuart, who recently visited 

 and fed the historic carp. Mr. Stuart noticed that although 

 not entirely white, so far as his observation extended, many of 

 these fish had a large white spot or scar on the top of their 

 heads — a sort of equivalent to baldness in the human subject, 

 he considered it. 



A reviewer in the Athenceum of August 8, 1863, gives the 

 following comical account of the Fontainbleu carp : — 



Visitors to Fontainbleu will doubtless remember the lake ad- 

 joining the palace and its large carp population, numbering many 

 of the most ancient of the family in Europe. To those who have 

 never been at Fontainbleu, we may state that the lake swarms 

 with these fish, of all ages and sizes, and that it is the custom of 

 visitors to feed them with bread ; but as ordinary bread would disr 

 appear in a moment amongst the hungry shoal, a plan has been 

 devised to give the visitors more amusement by using balls of 

 bread, about the size of a man's fist, baked to biscuit-like hard- 

 ness. 



On casting one of these balls into the lake, it is immediately 

 surrounded by scores of carp, hungry youngsters for the most 



