barbel. 
n 
le ood of the Earbel is often vegetable, but it also feeds 
ee y on worms, insects, or any molluscous animal or substance; 
tbe^l^^*^ '^hich it not only keeps near the bottom, as do 
fishes which possess barbs at the mouth, but 
1 wi dig into the softer bottom of the stream. Anglers have 
ai.en a vantage of this propensity by throwing into the still 
water some of their well-known soft and fat pastes, by way of 
a tractmg these fishes to the spot a few hours before the time 
ley^e piepaied to fish for them. They may then be induced 
to take a bait freely, but when hooked they are not so readily 
lought to land. The Barbel is indeed, as the Book of St. 
Albans remarks of the Carp, “an evil fish to take; for he is so 
®narmyd in the mouth that there may no weak harness 
bn . .c V Walton relates an instance where for several 
hours the fish refused to be landed, and at last made its escape; 
?orlw"r by running its head 
with , a h-7’' “■> ‘1*= 
We lea' ’ bas the ancient authority of Plutarch, 
“it t r “Gentleman Angler,” printed in 1726,- 
he two famous places to angle for Barbel about London are 
• ingston Bridge and Shepperton Pool; at the latter of which 
places there m great quantity of Barbel. No Barbel by the 
rules of angling ought to be killed which does not measure 
Mghteen inches fairly. A Barbel taken in Byfleet or Weybridge 
Bivers, of twenty inches in length, will down weigh another of 
the same length taken in the Thames by a pound or upwards, 
and IS much firmer, fatter, and better relished.” 
It spawns in the early part of summer not far from the bank 
o e liver, and the spawn, which is discharged in a string, 
13 entwined round some fixed object, as a stone or weed. 
Jonston refers to Albertus as saying, that the parents keep 
watch over the spawn after it is shed. 
believe that this fish is an original native 
ot British lakes and the deeper rivers; but there are several 
counties m England and Scotland in which it is not found. 
In some others also it may have been introduced for the sake of 
variety, and it is not mentioned by ilr. Thompson among the 
fishes of Ireland, nor among those recorded in Scotland in the 
Royal Publicadon of the Natural History of Braemar and 
Deeside. It is not known in the northern portions of the 
VOL. IV. p 
