CHAP. IX.] THE FOURTH DAY. 143 



should breed in some ponds, and not in others, of the same nature 

 for soil and all other circumstances. And as their breeding, so 

 are their decays also very mysterious : I have both read it, and 

 been told by a gentleman of tried honesty, that he has known 

 sixty or more large Carps put into several ponds near to a house, 

 where, by reason of the stakes in the ponds, and the owner's constant 

 being near to them, it was impossible they should be stole away 

 from him ; and that when he has, after three or four years, emptied 

 the pond, and expected an increase from them by breeding young 

 ones, for that they might do so he had, as the rule is, put in three 

 melters for one spawner, he has, I say, after three or four years, 

 found neither a young nor old Carp remaining. And the like I 

 have known of one that had almost watched the pond, and, at a 

 like distance of time, at the fishing of a pond, found, of seventy 

 or eighty large Carps, not above five or six : and that he had 

 forborne longer to fish the said pond, but that he saw, in a hot day 

 in summer, a large Carp swim near the top of the water with a 

 frog upon his head ; and that he, upon that occasion, caused his 

 pond to be let dry : and I say, of seventy or eighty Carps, only 

 found five or six in the said pond, and those very sick and lean, 

 and with every one a frog sticking so fast on the head of the said 

 Carps, that the frog would not be got off without extreme force or 

 killing. And the gentleman that did affirm this to me, told me 

 he saw it ; and did declare his belief to be, and I also believe the 

 same, that he thought the other Carps, that were so strangely lost, 

 were so killed by the frogs, and then devoured. 



And a person of honour, now living in Worcestershire,* assured 

 me he had seen a necklace, or collar of tadpoles, hang like a chain 

 or necklace of beads about a Pike's neck,* and to kill him : 

 Whether it were for meat or malice, must be, to me, a question. 



But I am fallen into this discourse by accident ; of which I 

 might say more, but it has proved longer than I intended, and 

 possibly may not to you be considerable : I shall therefore give 

 you three or four more short observations of the Carp, and then 

 fall upon some directions how you shall fish for him. 



The age of Carps is by Sir Francis Bacon, in his History of Life 



* " Mr Fr. Ru." This passage occurs for the first time in the Ji/ik edition. Tlie 

 only person mentioned in the last Herald's Visitation, of Worcestershire, whose names 

 agree with that reference, is Francis RufFord, of Sapy in that county, esquire, who died 



about the year 1678, aged eighty-two, leaving by Margaret, daughter of Brydges 



of Upleaden, in the county of Hereford — i. Francis, his son and heir, act. 37, in 1683, 

 who was then married and had three children ; 2. Tamarlane of the city of London, who 

 was also married and had issue ; 3. Benjamin, who died unmarried in 1680 ; and a 

 daughter Ann, the wifo of John Yananton of Redstone, in the county of Worcester. 

 MS. in the College of Arms, marked K. 4, f. 154. 



