PLATE XXIX. 
lower one, and in having the four beards appendant, from which 
the appropriate name of Barbus or Barbel is derived. This fifh 
during the summer prefers the rapid currents and shallows of rivers, 
and retires at the approach of winter to the more still and deeper 
places, 1 hey live in societies ; lurking in holes along the sides of 
the water under the shelter of the steepest banks, and feed on 
smaller fish and worms, and flesh of all kinds, for which they dig 
in the banks like swine. In the day time, they love to lurk occa- 
sionally among weeds and between the stones in retired parts of the 
river, and wander out in the night in search of prey. They spawn 
in April, and begin to be in season in May and June. 
The flesh of the Barbel was never in great esteem for the table. 
Mr. Pennant qnotes a passage in Ausomus, which, as he observes, 
is no panegyric on its excellence ; and he adds, himself, that “ they 
are the worst and coarsest of fresh-water fish, and seldom eat but by 
the poorer sort of people, who sometimes boil them with a bit of 
bacon to give them a relish.” 
“ The Barbel,” says old Walton, “ though he be of a fine shape, 
and looks big, yet he is not accounted the best fish to cat, neither 
for his wholesomeness nor his taste : but the male is reputed much 
better than the female, whose spawn is very hurtful.” 
Again, when speaking of Itondeletius, he makes this remark on 
the spawn, “ we agree with him, that the spawn of the Barbel, if 
it be not poison, as he says, yet that it is dangerous meat, and 
especially in the month of May ; which is so certain, that Gesner 
and Gassius declare, it had an ill effect upon them, even to the en- 
dangering of their lives. ’ Sir J, Hawkins, in his annotations on 
