in or anointed with oil of petre, called by some, oil of the rock: and if your gentles be put, two or three days before, into a box or horn anointed with honey, and so put upon your hook as to preserve them to be living, you are as like to kill this crafty fish this way as any other but still, as you are fishing, chew a little white or brown bread in your mouth, and cast it into the pond about the place where your float swims. Other baits there be; but these, with diligence and patient watchfulness, will do better than any that I have ever practised or heard of. And yet I shall tell you, that the crumbs of white bread and honey made into a paste is a good bait for a Carp; and you know, it is more easily made.* And having said thus much of the Carp,† my next discourse shall be of the Bream, which shall not prove so tedious; and therefore I desire the continuance of your attention.

But, first, I will tell you how to make this Carp, that is so curious to be caught, so curious a dish of meat as shall make him worth all your labour and patience. And though it is not without some trouble and charges, yet it will recompense both.

Take a Carp, alive if possible; scour him, and rub him clean with water and salt, but scale him not: then open him; and put him, with his blood and his liver, which you must save when you open him, into a small pot or kettle then take sweet marjoram, thyme, and parsley, of each half a handful; a sprig of rosemary, and another of savoury; bind them into two or three small bundles, and put them to your Carp, with four or five whole onions, twenty pickled oysters, and three anchovies. Then pour upon your Carp

* And see a bait that serves likewise for the Bream in the next chapter.-H. The haunts of the river Carp are, in the winter months, the broadest and most quiet parts of the river; but in summer, they lie in deep holes, nooks, and reaches, near some Scour, and under roots of trees, hollow banks, and, till they are near rotting, amongst or near great beds cf weeds, flags, &c. Pond Carp cannot, with propriety, be said to have any haunts only it is to be noted, that they love a fat rich soil, and never thrive in a cold hungry water. They breed three or four times a year: but their first spawning-time is the beginning of May. Baits for the Carp are, all sorts of earth and dunghill worms; flag-worms, grasshoppers, though not at top: ox-brains; the pith of an ox's backbone; green pease; and red or black cherries, with the stones taken out. Fish with strong

tackle, very near the bottom, and with a fine grass or gut next the hook and use a goose-quill float. Never attempt to angle for the Carp in a boat; for they will not come near it. It is said there are many Carp in the Thames, westward of London: and that, about February, they retire to the creeks in that river; in some of which, many above two feet long have been taken with an angle. Angler's Sure Guide, p. 179.

Carp live the longest out of the water of any fish. It is a common practice in Holland to keep them alive for three weeks or a month, by hanging them in a cool place, with wet moss in a net, and feeding them with bread steeped in milk; taking care to refresh the animal now and then by throwing fresh water over the net in which it is suspended.

-H.

In Carp-fishing it must be a sine quâ non to keep out of sight of the fish, and to prevent the shadow from falling on the water. Perhaps the most certain mode of taking is to have a line wholly of gut: and in lieu of a float, a swan-shot fixed at about two feet above the hook, and lodged, whilst fishing, upon a dock leaf, or any similar substance.

[PART I.

as much claret wine as will only cover him; and season your claret well with salt, cloves, and mace, and the rinds of oranges and lemons. That done, cover your pot and set it on a quick fire till it be sufficiently boiled. Then take out the Carp; and

lay it, with the broth, into the dish; and pour upon it a quarter of a pound of the best fresh butter, melted, and beaten with half-adozen spoonfuls of the broth, the yolks of two or three eggs, and some of the herbs shred: garnish your dish with lemons, and so And much good do you !-Dr T.

serve it up. PISCATOR. stately fish.

CHAP. X.

On the Bream.

THE Bream being, at a full growth, is a large and He will breed both in rivers and ponds: * but loves best to live in ponds, and where, if he likes the water and air, he will grow not only to be very large, He is by Gesner taken to be more pleasant, or sweet, than wholesome. breeds exceedingly in a water that pleases him; yea, in many This fish is long in growing; but ponds so fast, as to overstore them, and starve the other fish.3

but as fat as a hog.

He is very broad, with a forked tail, and his scales set in excellent order he hath large eyes, and a narrow sucking mouth; he hath two sets of teeth, and a lozenge-like bone, a bone to help his grinding. The melter is observed to have two large melts; and the female, two large bags of eggs or spawn.

Gesner reports, that in Poland a certain and a great number of large Breams were put into a pond, which in the next following winter were frozen up into one entire ice, and not one drop of water remaining, nor one of these fish to be found, though they were diligently searched for; and yet the next spring, when the ice was thawed, and the weather warm, and fresh water got into the pond, he affirms they all appeared again. This Gesner affirms; and I quote my author, because it seems almost as incred

VARIATION.

3 The ensuing observations, in the text, on the Bream, and the method of fishing for him, were added in the second edition. In the first, the instructions on the subject are thus briefly given: "The baits good for to catch the Bream are many: as, namely, young wasps and a paste made of brown bread and honey, or gentles, or especially a worm that is not much unlike a maggot which you will find at the roots of docks or of flags, or of rushes that grow in the water, or watery places, and a grasshopper having his legs nipt off, or a fly that is in June and July to be found amongst the green reed growing by the water-side, those are said to be excellent baits. I doubt not but there be many others, that both the Bream and the Carp also would bite at: but these, time and experience will teach you how to find out. you these short observations concerning the Bream, I shall also give you some observaAnd so having according to my promise given tions concerning the Tench, and those also very briefly."

* The Bream is a native of many parts of Europe, inhabiting the larger kind of lakes, still rivers, &c., and is sometimes seen even in the Caspian Sea. See Shaw's Zoology, vol. v. part i. p. 196.-E.