Leonard Mafchal, about the year 1514*, Turkies, carps, hops, pickerel, and beer, As to the two laft articles we have fome doubts, the others we believe to be true. Ruffia wants thefe fifh at this day; Sweden has them only in the ponds of the people of fathion Polish Pruffia is the chief feat of the carp; they abound in the rivers and lakes of that country, particularly in the Frich and Curifch-haff, where they are taken of a valt lize. They are there a great article of commerce, and fent in well-boats to Sweden and Ruffia. The merchants purchafe them out of the waters of the nobleffe of the country, who draw a good revenue from this article. Neither are there wanting among our gentry, inftances of fomme who make good pront of their ponds. The ancients do not feparate the carp from the fea fish. We are credibly informed that they are fometimes found in the harbour of Dantzick, between the town and a fmall placed called Hela. Carp are very long lived. Gefner brings an inftance of one that was an hundred years old. They alfo grow to a very great fize. On our own knowledge we can fpeak of none that exceeded twenty pounds in weight; but Jovius fays, that they were fometimes taken in the Lacus Larius (the Lago di Como) of two hundred pounds weight; and Rzaczynski mentions others taken in the Dniefter that were five feet in length. They are alfo extremely tenacious of life, and will live for a moft remarkable time out of water. An experiment has been made by placing a carp in a net, well wrapped up in wet mofs, the mouth only remaining out, and then hung up in a cellar, or fome cool place: the fish is frequently fed with white bread and milk, and is befides often plunged into water. Carp thus managed have been known, not only to have lived above a fortnight, but to grow exceedingly fat, and far fuperior in tafte to those that are immediately killed from the pond +. Fuller's British Worthies, Suffex, 113. This was told me by a gentleman of the utmoit veracity, who had twice made the experiment. The fame fact is related by that pious philofopher Doctor Derham, in his Phyfico-Theology, edit. 9th. 1737. ch. I. p. 7. n.c. The carp is a prodigious breeder: its quantity of roe has been fometimes found fo great, that when taken out and weighed. against the fifh itself, the former has been found to preponderate. From the fpawn of this fith caviare is made for the Jews, who hold this fturgeon in abhorrence. These fish are extremely cunning, and on that account are by fome ftyled the ri ver fox. They will fometimes leap over the nets, and efcape that way; at others, will immerfe themfelves fo deep in the mud, as to let the net pafs over them. They are alfo very fhy of taking a bait; yet at the fpawning time they are fo fimple, as to fuffer themfelves to be tickled, handled, and caught by any body that will attempt it. This fifh is apt to mix its milt with the roe of other fil, from which is produced a fpurious breed: we have feen the offspring of the carp and tench, which bore the greatest refemblance to the first: have also heard of the fame mixture between the carp and bream. The carp is of a thick fhape: the fcales very large, and when in best season of a fine gilded hue. The jaws are of equal length; there are two teeth in the jaws, or on the tongue; but at the entrance of the gullet, above and below, are certain bones that act on each other, and comminute the food before it paffes down. On each fide of the mouth is a fingle beard; above thofe on each fide another, but fhorter: the dorsal fin extends far towards the tail, which is a little bifurcated; the third ray of the dorsal fin is very strong, and armed with fharp teeth, pointing downwards; the third ray of the anal fin is conftructed in the fame manner. $27. The BARBEL. This fish was fo extremely coarfe, as to be overlooked by the ancients till the time of Aufonius, and what he says is no panegyric on it; for he lets us know it loves deep waters, and that when it grows old it was not abfolutely bad. Laxos exerces BARBE natatus, It frequents the fill and deep parts of rivers, and lives in fociety, rooting like fwine with their noles in the foft banks. It is fo tame as to fuffer itself to be taken with the hand; and people have been known to take take numbers by diving for them. In fummer they move about during night in fearch of food, but towards autumn, and during winter, confine themselves to the deepest holes. They are the worst and coarfeft of fresh water fish, and feldom eat but by the poorer fort of people, who fometimes boil them with a bit of bacon to give them a relish. The roe is very noxious, affecting thofe who unwarily eat of it with a naufea, vomiting, purging, and a flight fwelling. It is fometimes found of the length of three feet, and eighteen pounds in weight: it is of a long and rounded form: the scales not large. Its head is fmooth: the noftrils placed near the eyes: the mouth is placed below: on each corner is a fingle beard, and another on each fide the nofe. The dorsal fin is armed with a remarkable ftrong fpine, sharply ferrated, with which it can inflict a very fevere wound on the incautious handler, and even do much damage to the nets. The pectoral fins are of a pale brown colour; the ventral and anal tipped with yellow: the tail a little bifurcated, and of a deep purple: the fide line is ftrait. The fcales are of a pale gold colour, edged with black: the belly is white. $28. The TENCH. The tench underwent the fame fate with the barbel, in refpect to the notice taken of it by the early writers; and even Aufonius, who first mentions it, treats it with fuch difrefpect as evinces the great capricioufnefs of tafte; for that fifh, which at prefent is held in fuch good repute, was in his days the repaft only of the canaille. Quis non et virides vulgi folatia Tincas It has been by fome called the Phyfician of the fish, and that the flime is healing, that the wounded apply it as a flyptic. The ingenious Mr. Diaper, in his pifcatory eclogues, fays, that even the voracious pike will fpare the tench on account of its healing powers: The Tench he fpares a medicinal kind: vouch for, but its flesh is a wholesome and delicious food to thofe of the earth. The Germans are of a d'fferent opinion. By way of contempt, they call it Shoemaker. Gefner even fays, that it is infipid and unwholefome. It does not commonly exceed four or five pounds in weight, but we have heard of one that weighed ten pounds; Salvianus fpeaks of fome that arrived at twenty pounds. They love ftill waters, and are rarely found in rivers: they are very foolish, and easily caught. The tench is thick and short in proportion to its length: the fcales are very small, and covered with flime. The irides are red: there is fometimes, but not always, a small beard at each corner of the mouth. The colour of the back is dufky; the doral and ventral fins of the fame colour: the head, fides, and belly, of a greenish caft, most beautifully mixed with gold, which is in its greatest fplender when the fish is in the higheft feafon. The tail is quite even at the end, and very broad. $29. The GUDGEON. Ariftotle mentions the gudgeon in two places; once as a river fifh, and again as a fpecies that was gregarious: in a third place he defcribes it as a lea fish: we muit therefore confider the Kaas he mentions, lib. ix. c. 2. and lib. viii. c. 19. as the fame with our species. This fifh is generally found in gentle ftreams, and is of a small fize: thofe few, however, that are caught in the Kennet, and Cole, are three times the weight of thofe taken elsewhere. The largest we and weighed half a pound. ever heard of was taken near Uxbridge, raking the bed of the river; to this spot They bite eagerly, and are affembled by they immediately crowd in fhoals, expecting food from this disturbance. The shape of the body is thick and round: the irides tinged with red: the gill covered with green and filver: the lower jaw is fhorter than the upper at each corner of the mouth is a fingle beard: the back olive, fpotted with black: the fide line ftrait; the fides beneath that filvery: the belly white. The tail is forked; that, as well as the dorfal fin, is fpotted with black. § 30. The BREAM. The bream is an inhabitant of lakes, or the deep parts of ftill rivers. It is a fifh that is very little esteemed, being extremely infipid. It is extremely deep, and thin in proportion to its length. The back rifes very much, and is very fharp at the top. The head and mouth are fmall: on fome we examined in the fpring, were abundance of minute whitifh tubercles; an accident which Pliny feems to have obferved befals the fish of the Lago Maggiore, and Lago di Como. The fcales are very large: the fides flat and thin. The dorfal fin has eleven rays, the fecond of which is the longeft: that fin, as well as all the reft, are of a dufky colour; the back of the fame hue: the fides yel lowish. The tail is very large, and of the form of a crefcent. $ 31. The CRUCIAN. This fpecies is common in many of the fish ponds about London, and other parts of the fouth of England; but I believe is not a native fish. It is very deep and thick: the back is much arched: the dorfal fin confifts of nineteen rays; the two firft ftrong and ferrated. The pectoral fins have (each) thirteen rays; the ventral nine; the anal feven or eight: the lateral line parallel with the belly: the tail almost even at the end. The colour of the fish in general is a deep yellow the meat is coarfe, and little esteemed. § 32. The ROACH. • Sound as a roach,' is a proverb that appears to be but indifferently founded, that fifh being not more diftinguished for its vivacity than many others; yet it is used by the French as well as us, who compare people of strong health to their gardon, our roach. It is a common fish, found in many of our deep ftill rivers, affecting, like the others of this genius, quiet waters. It is gregarious, keeping in large fhoals. We have never feen them very large. Old Walton fpeaks of fome that weighed two pounds. In a lift of fish fold in the London markets, with the greatest weight of each, communicated to us by an intelligent fishmonger, is mention of one whole weight was five pounds. The roach is deep but thin, and the back is much elevated, and fharply ridged: the fcales large, and fall off very easily. Side lines bend much in the middle towards the belly. $33. The DACE. haunts the fame places, is a great breeder, This, like the roach, is gregarious, very lively, and during fummer is very fond of frolicking near the furface of the water. This fifh and the roach are coarse and infipid meat. Its head is fmall: the irides of a pale yellow: the body long and flender: its length feldom above ten inches, though in the above-mentioned lift is an account of one that weighed a pound and an half: the fcales fmaller than thofe of the roach. The back is varied with dufky, with a caft of a yellowish green: the fides and belly filvery: the dorsal fin dusky: the ventral, anal, and caudal fins red, but lefs fo than thofe of the former: the tail is very much forked. $34. The CHUB. Salvianus imagines this fish to have been the jqualus of the ancients, and grounds his opinion on a fuppofed error in a certain paflage in Columella and Varro, where he would fubftitute the word fqualus instead of carus: Columella fays no more than that the old Romans paid much attention to their stews, and kept even the fea-fish in freth-water, paying as much respect to the mullet and fearus, as those of his days did to the murana and bass. That the fearus was not our chub, is very evident; not only because the chub is entirely an inhabitant of fresh waters, but likewise it seems improbable that the Romans would give themfelves any trouble about the worst of river fish, when they neglected the most delicious kinds; all their attention was directed towards thofe of the fea: the difficulty of procuring them seems to have been the criterion of their value, as is ever the cafe with effete luxury. The chub is a very coarse fish, and full of bones: it frequents the deep holes of rivers, and during fummer commonly lies on the furface, beneath the shade of fome tree or bush. It is a very timid 'fish, finking to the bottom on the least alarm, even at the paffing of a fhadow, but they will foon refume their fituation. It feeds on worms, caterpillars, grafshoppers, beetles, and other coleopterous infects that happen to fall into the water; and it will even feed on cray-fish. This fish will rife to a fly. This fish takes its name from its head, not only in our own, but in other languages; we call it chub, according to Skinner, from the old English, cop, a head; the French, teftard; the Italians, capitone. It does not grow to a large fize; we have known fome that weighed above five pounds, but Salvianus fpeaks of others that were eight or nine pounds in weight. The body is oblong, rather round, and of a pretty equal thickne's the greateft part of the way: the fcales are large. The irides filvery; the cheeks of the fame colour: the head and back of a deep dufky green; the fides filvery, but in the fummer yellow the belly white: the pectoral fins of a pale yellow: the ventral and anal fins red: the tail a little forked, of a brownish hue, but tinged with blue at the end. $35. The BLEAK. The talking of thefe, Aufonius lets us know, was the fport of children, ALBURNOS prædam puerilibus hamis. They are very common in many of our rivers, and keep together in large fhoals. These fish feem at certain feafons to be in great agonies; they tumble about near the furface of the water, and are incapable of fwimming far from the place, bnt in about two hours recover, and disappear. Fith thus affected, the Thames fishermen call mad bleaks. They feem to be troubled with a fpecies of gordius or hair-worm, of the fame kind with thofe which Ariftotle fays that the ballerus and tills are infeited with, which torments them fo that they rife to the furface of the water and then die. Artificial pearls are made with the fcales of this fifh, and we think of the dace. They are beat into a fine powder, then diluted with water, and introduced into a thin glafs bubble, which is afterwards filled with wax. The French were the inventors of this art. Doctor Lifter + tells us, that when he was at Paris, a certain artist used in one winter thirty hampers full of fish in this manufacture. The bleak feldom exceeds five or fix inches in length: their body is flender, greatly compreffed fideways, not unlike that of the fprat. The eyes are large; the irides of a pale yellow: the under jaw the longeft: the lateral line crooked: the gills filvery: the back green: the fides and belly filvery: the *Hift. an. lib. viii. c. 20. fins pellucid: the fcales fall off very eafily: the tail much forked. § 36. The WHITE BAIT. During the month of July there appear in the Thames, near Blackwall and Greenwich, innumerable multitudes of finall fish, which are known to the Londoners by the name of White Bait. They are esteemed very delicious when fied with fine flour, and occafion, during the feafon, a vait refort of the lower order of epicures to the taverns contiguous to the places they are taken at. There are various conjectures about this fpecies, but all terminate in a fuppofition that they are the fry of fome fith, but few agree to which kind they owe their origin. Some attribute it to the flad, others to the fprat, the smelt, and the bleak. That they neither belong to the fhad, nor the fprat, is evident from the number of branchioftegous rays, which in thofe are eight, in this only three. That they are not the young of fmelts, is as clear, because they want the pinna adipofa, or raylets fin; and that they are not the offspring of the bleak is extremely probable, fince we never heard of the white bait being found in any other river, notwithstanding the bleak is very common in feveral of the British treams: but as the white bait bears a greater fimilarity to this fish than to any other we have mentioned, we give it a place here as an appendage to the bleak, rather than form a diflinct article of a fif which it is impoffible to class with certainty. It is evident that it is of the carp or cyprinus genus; it has only three bran chiolegous rays, and only one dorful fir; and in respect to the form of the body, is compreffed like that of the bleak. Its ufual length is two inches: the under jaw is the longeft: the irides filvery, the pupil black: the dorfal fin is placed nearer to the head than to the tail, and confists of about fourteen rays: the fide line is strait: the tail forked, the tips black. The head, fides, and belly, are filvery; the back tinged with green. $37. The MINOW. This beautiful fish is frequent in many of our small gravelly ftreams, where they keep in fhoals. The body is flender and fmooth, the fcales being extremely fmall. It seldom exceeds three inches in length. The The lateral line is of a golden colour: the back flat, and of a deep olive: the fides and belly vary greatly in different fish; in a few are of a rich crimson, in others bluish, in others white. The tail is forked, and marked near the base with a dusky spot. 38. The GOLD FISH. These fish are now quite naturalized in this country, and breed as freely in the open waters as the common carp. They were first introduced into England about the year 1691, but were not generally known till 1728, when a great number were brought over, and prefented first to Sir Mathew Dekker, and by him circulated round the neighbourhood of London, from whence they have been diftributed to moft parts of the country. In China the most beautiful kinds are taken in a small lake in the province of Che-Kyang. Every person of fashion keeps them for amusement, either in porcelaine veffels, or in the small bafons that decorate the courts of the Chinese houses. The beauty of their colours and their lively motions give great entertainment, efpecially to the ladies, whofe pleafures, by reafon of the cruel policy of that country, are extremely limited. In form of the body they bear a great resemblance to a carp. They have been known in this ifland to arrive at the length of eight inches; in their native place they are faid to grow to the fize of our largest herring. The noftrils are tubular, and form a fort of appendage above the nofe: the dorfal fin and the tail vary greatly in shape: the tail is naturally bifid, but in many is trifid, and in fome even quadrifid: the anal fins are the strongest characters of this species, being placed not behind one another like thofe of other fish, but oppofite each other like the ventral fins. The colours vary greatly; fome are marked with a fine blue, with brown, with bright filver; but the general predominant colour is gold, of a most amazing fplendor; but their colour and form need not be dwelt on, fince thofe who want oppor. tunity of feeing the living fifh, may furvey them expreffed in the molt animated manner, in the works of our ingenious and honest friend Mr. George Edwards. Du Halde, 316. Pennant. A NEW CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE of Remarkable Events, Discoveries, and Inventions: Aifo, the Era, the Country, and Writings of Learned Men. The whole comprehending, in one View, the Analyfis or Outlines of General History from the. Creation to the prefent Time. Before Christ. 4004 4003 HE creation of the world, and Adam and Eve. TH The birth of Cain, the first who was born of a woman. 3017 Enoch, for his piety, is tranflated into Heaven. 2348 The old world is destroyed by a deluge which continued 377 days. 2247 The tower of Babel is built about this time by Noah's pofterity, upon which God miraculously confounds their language, and thus difperfes them into different nations. About the fame time Noah is, with great probability, fuppofed to have parted from his rebellious offspring, and to have led a colony of fome of the more tractable into the Eaft, and there either he or one of his fucceffors to have founded the ancient Chinese monarchy. 2234 The |