360 
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare’s Time. 
porting the carp into England about the year 1514. This 
fish was plentiful in Fuller’s time:— 
“ Now as this county [Sussex] is eminent for both sea and river 
fish, namely an Arundel mullet, a Chichester lobster, a Shelsey cockle, 
and an Amerly trout; so Sussex aboundeth with more carps than any 
other of this nation.” ( Worthies , vol. iii. p. 240.) 
Mention is made, in the Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth 
of York, 1502, of a reward paid for the present of a carp. 
Harrison refers to the recent introduction of this fish into 
England. Noticing the number of fish found in the 
Thames, he writes:— 
“ Onelie in carps it seemeth to he scant, sith it is not long since 
that kind of fish was brought over into England, and hut of late to 
speake of into this streame, by the violent rage of sundrie landflouds, 
that brake open the heads and dams of divers gentlemens ponds, by" 
which means it became somewhat partaker also of this said com- 
moditie, whereof earst it had no portion that I could ever heare.” 
( Holinshed , vol. i. p. 77.) 
Robert Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy (vol. i. 
p. 218), gives us some learned information respecting the 
carp’s place in hygiene:— 
“Carp is a fish, of which I know not what to determine. 
Franciscus Bonsuetus accounts it a muddy fish. Hippolytus Salvianus, 
in his hook De Piscium Naturd et Prxparatione, which was printed 
at Borne in folio, 1554, with most elegant pictures, esteems carp no 
better than a slimy watery meat. Paulus Jovius, on the other side, 
disallowing tench, approves of it; so doth Dubravius in his books of 
fishponds. Frietagius extols it for an excellent wholesome meat, and 
puts it amongst the fishes of the best rank ; and so do most of our 
countrey gentlemen, that store their ponds almost with no other fish.” 
The sturgeon, on account of its want of scales, was to 
the Jews a forbidden fish; a caviare, which was prepared 
from the roe of the carp, was appreciated by them as a 
substitute for the genuine article. 
The notion alluded to by Ben Jonson, that “ the carp 
