246 NOTES ON PISH AND FISHING. 



sheep, and pigs. Carp cooked au naturel is, me judice, 

 little better than steamed paper pulp, and, when stewed 

 with an elaborate and complicated sauce, the latter is the 

 only fairly edible, or, as perhaps I should say, drinkable 

 portion of the dish. Carp taken from stagnant water are 

 simply abominable, and but little better when taken from 

 a river like the Thames. A carp, to be reasonably 

 edible, or, as perhaps I should say, edible in a negative 

 sense — i.e. not absolutely revolting — should be placed for 

 some weeks in a narrow "stew" with a stream of clear 

 cold water swiftly running through it. Carp were so 

 treated in the days of good Queen Bess, when a stewed 

 carp was thought " a dainty dish to set before a king" or 

 queen. The same thing is done now in the Victorian era, 

 and the carp taken in nets by the " royal" fishermen at 

 Virginia Water are sent to Windsor and kept for weeks 

 in a swiftly-running narrow " stew" under the walls of the 

 castle before they are served, as a royal tradition, at the 

 royal table. 



Occasionally is found in English waters the Crucian or 

 German carp (Cyprinus carassius) a fish more a bream 

 than a carp in shape ; and it is not to be confounded with 

 the Prussian or Gibel carp (Cyprinus gibelio) which is a 

 much more common fish. I need hardly say that the gold 

 fish of our glass bowls (in which, by the way, I think 

 it rather a cruelty to keep them) are carps (Cyprinus 

 auratus) . 



I shall reserve, till towards the close of the next Note 

 on Tench, a few miscellaneous memoranda in reference 

 to carp piscatorially, as carp-fishing and tench-fishing 

 naturally go together, the rules and observances of the 

 one being in the main those of the other. 



