MORE FISHING NOTES. 251 



but so far as I am concerned in the matter, he is not 

 a favourite, nor do I care for the means employed 

 for his capture. 



Carp and tench are, to a certain extent, local. 

 Some of those old moated farms on the borders of 

 Sussex, which were at one time manor-houses, have 

 large ponds attached to them. So secluded are 

 these houses and the ponds, that very few outside 

 the weald district know of their existence. All the 

 land is more or less clayey. Huge bulrushes fringe 

 the margin of the ponds ; and water-lilies, both 

 yellow and white, grow luxuriantly. In such situa- 

 tions carp and tench do well. Rods and lines are 

 almost unknown, at least they are never used for their 

 capture. The consequence is that the fish are almost 

 as unsophisticated as some of the people ; there are 

 exceptions, nevertheless, to every rule. One thing I 

 know, they will take worms as freely as perch. When 

 tlie angler, who has put his rod down to light his pipe, 

 finds, on turning round to pick it up, that his eighteen 

 feet of bamboo is in the water, making tracks for the 

 middle at a rapid rate, he may conclude that some- 

 thing in the shape of a good fish is at one end of it ; 

 the thing is to repossess himself thereof. 



