Br. 
 
 And oj
 
 BERKELEY 
 
 UNI 

 
 A Book of the Running Brook 
 And of Still Waters 
 
 BY 
 
 LADY COLIN CAMPBELL 
 
 Eoution 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON 
 
 CROWN BUILDINGS, l88, FLEET STREET 
 
 1886 
 [All rights reserved}
 
 LONDON" 
 
 PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIV1NGTON, LIMITED, 
 ST. JOHN'S SQUARE.
 
 TO 
 
 W. H. P. AND W. M. 
 
 THIS LITTLE BOOK IS INSCRIBED 
 
 AS A SLIGHT TOKEN OF THE AFFECTION 
 
 OF 
 
 THE AUTHOR.
 
 A cold, sweet, silver life, wrapped in round waves, 
 Quickened with touches of transporting fear."
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 \ T the time of the Fisheries Exhibition, 
 three years ago, public attention 
 was much attracted to the subjects 
 of fish culture and fish supply. There were 
 sixpenny fish-dinners ; and fishes in every stage 
 and shape, alive and dead, in salt water and in 
 pickle-bottles, were the subject of the day. 
 One might have exclaimed with Mercutio, 
 "Oh, flesh! flesh ! how art thou fishified ! " 
 
 The papers were full of a wordy corre-
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 spondence on the merits and demerits of accli- 
 matization of various foreign fishes. But the 
 fish craze, like other crazes, ran its course, and 
 after a few months was practically forgotten. 
 
 Yet surely a question of such vital importance 
 as the supply of cheap and wholesome food to 
 a vast population merited a better fate than 
 consignment to the waters of oblivion. Is it 
 not a ghastly mockery that in a country sur- 
 rounded by seas teeming with fish there should 
 be found utter destitution in our great cities ? 
 The expenses of deep-sea fishing, the boats, the 
 nets, the trawling gear, the risks attendant upon 
 stormy weather, and a thousand other excuses 
 are all made the most of by the " Fish Ring " 
 to keep up the exorbitant price of fish in the 
 market. Fish being creatures that cost nothing
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 to " raise," as the Americans say, ought to be 
 food within the reach of the very poorest, and 
 it is therefore only by enlarging on the expenses 
 of its capture that a colourable excuse is given 
 for its present price. If, therefore, good fish 
 can be had in large quantities without any out- 
 lay of capital for fishing gear, and without any 
 of the dangers which deep-sea fishermen have 
 to face, there might surely be found landlords, 
 both philanthropic and shrewd, who would 
 turn their attention to the question, and make 
 use of their ponds and lakes for the benefit 
 both of their own empty pockets and of the 
 emptier stomachs of their poorer brethren. 
 
 It was in the hope of fixing further attention 
 on this neglected wealth of English waters, that 
 a series of articles was undertaken during the
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 winter of 1885-6, for the Editor of the Saturday 
 Review. With his permission they are here 
 collected for re-issue in handier form. 
 
 GERTRUDE CAMPBELL. 
 
 2, VICTORIA MANSIONS, S.W. 
 May, 1886.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 CHAPTER J. 
 
 EELS AND ELVERS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 v 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 WATER WOLVES .... 21 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CARP CULTURE 
 
 37 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 COUSINS OF THE CARP 51 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 PERCH 69
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PACK 
 
 SMALL FRY 1 85 
 
 SMALL FRY II 96 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FISH-PONDS 1 109 
 
 FISH-PONDS II 119
 
 " Hath not old custom made this life more sweet 
 Than that of painted pomp ? Are not these woods 
 More free from peril than the envious court ? 
 Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, 
 The seasons' difference, as the icy fang 
 And churlish chiding of the winter's wind, 
 Which, when it bites and blows upon my body, 
 Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say : 
 ' This is no flattery : these are counsellors 
 That feelingly persuade me what I am.' 
 Sweet are the uses of adversity, 
 Which, like the toad ugly and venomous, 
 Wears yet a precious jewel in his head. 
 And this our life, exempt from public haunt, 
 Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything. 
 I would not change it." 
 
 As You Like It.
 
 EELS AND ELVERS
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EELS AND ELVERS. 
 
 ELS are among the mysteries of 
 this world. In spite of the way 
 in which Dame Science has per- 
 sistently poked her nose into 
 most things, and has harried 
 them and laid them bare, she has succeeded 
 in discovering but little about eels and their 
 mode of life. However, it would be rash to 
 go as far in our confession of ignorance as 
 a writer recently did, and declare "that we 
 know next to nothing of eels beyond the 
 periods of their migration." If we knew nothing 
 more than that, we should indeed know but 
 little, as in many places eels never migrate at 
 all, but grow fat and flourish from year to year 
 in the pond or lake where they were born, 
 without ever leaving if to seek the brackish 
 
 B 2
 
 4 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 water of estuaries which some authorities deem 
 necessary to their existence. The same writer 
 asserts that the distinction between " shovel- 
 nosed " and " pointed-nosed " eels is purely 
 " fanciful," and accounts for the difference by 
 saying that " most fish develop a shovel-nose 
 when they are working up stream." If this 
 were the case, an eel would have a shovel nose 
 in the spring and a sharp nose in the autumn. 
 Such a capability of altering his features would 
 be certainly open to envy ; but, unfortunately 
 for this theory, the structure of the two fish is 
 materially different, and the single fact that the 
 shovel or broad-nosed eel has 115 vertebra;, 
 while his sharp-nosed relative possesses only 
 113, is sufficient to prove the fallacy of the idea 
 that the two fish are identical. 
 
 Of fresh-water eels, as apart from their mighty 
 cousin the Conger, there are three distinct kinds 
 the sharp-nosed eel, the broad-nosed or frog- 
 mouthed eel, and the snig. Of these three, the 
 sharp-nosed eel is both the largest fish and the 
 best eating, though some prefer the snig eel as 
 having a superior flavour. The snig, however, 
 in spite of its excellence, has not the same value
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 
 
 as the sharp-nosed eel ; for it seldom, if ever, 
 attains more than half a pound in weight. The 
 sharp-nosed eel, on the contrary, attains an 
 enormous size. One on record taken in the 
 Medway, not far from Rochester, weighed 
 34 Ibs., measured 6 ft. in length, and had a 
 girth of 25 ins. Another eel, taken in Kent, 
 weighed 40 Ibs., and measured 5 ft. 9 ins. 
 Yarrell speaks of having seen at Cambridge the 
 preserved skins of two which had weighed 
 together 50 Ibs.; the heaviest 27 Ibs., the other 
 23 Ibs. But these instances, though not to be 
 regarded as apocryphal, are still very excep- 
 tional ; and a fair average weight for sharp- 
 nosed eels is 6 Ibs. Eels of even 10 Ibs. weight 
 are not common, and Mr. Frank Buckland 
 speaks of one of that size as being the largest he 
 had ever seen. 
 
 From time immemorial eels have been much 
 esteemed by epicures, more perhaps in ancient 
 days than they are now. Both Aristotle and 
 Aristophanes mention eels in terms of high 
 praise ; indeed, the former may be considered 
 to have known more about eels than the con- 
 temporary we have already referred to, for he
 
 6 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 recognized at least two distinct species of eels. 
 By the Egyptians eels were regarded with great 
 abhorrence as the embodiment of an evil 
 demon ; but other nations did not share the 
 prejudice, for the Boeotians, who were cele- 
 brated for their eels, used them as sacred offer- 
 ings. Misson, in his travels, tells of a vow 
 made by the inhabitants of Terracina, a seaport 
 of Italy, when besieged by the Turks. They 
 vowed to offer twenty thousand eels a year to 
 St Benedict if he would deliver them from their 
 peril. Whether a fond memory of stewed eels 
 touched the saint we do not know, but the 
 siege was raised, and the Benedictine monks 
 got their eels every year from the virtuous and 
 grateful inhabitants. The Venerable Bede 
 mentions the eel-fisheries of Britain in his 
 " History of the Anglo-Saxon Church," and 
 Thomas a Becket, when he travelled in France, 
 " expended the large sum of a hundred shillings 
 in a dish of eels." Any one who could now sit 
 down to cope with a dish of eels of the value 
 of five pounds would indeed have gastronomic 
 capabilities likely to make an alderman die of
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 7 
 
 envy. But in the eating of eels, whether plen- 
 tiful or scarce, it is well to remember the advice 
 given in the ancient medical book entitled 
 " Regimen Sanitatis Salerniae : " 
 
 " Who knows not physic should be nice and choice 
 In eating eels, because they hurt the voice. 
 Both eels and cheese, without good store of wine 
 Well drunk with them, offend at any time." 
 
 For a long period the most extraordinary 
 theories were accepted regarding the birth of 
 young eels. Aristotle believed they sprang 
 from the mud (wherein he was not far wrong, 
 as eels deposit their spawn in mud and 
 sand); Pliny maintained that young eels de- 
 veloped from fragments separated from the 
 parents' bodies by rubbing against rocks ; others 
 supposed that they proceeded from the carcases 
 of animals ; Helmont declared that they came 
 from May-dew, and gave the following recipe 
 for obtaining them : " Cut up two turfs covered 
 with May-dew, and lay one upon the other, the 
 grassy side inwards, and then expose them to 
 the heat of the sun ; in a few hours there will 
 spring from them an infinite quantity of eels."
 
 8 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK : 
 
 Of the somewhat less ancient superstition of 
 one's childhood that horse-hairs cut up and 
 deposited in water would turn into eels it is 
 hardly necessary to speak, for who cannot re- 
 member those unpleasant little bottles, erst 
 used for medicine, which garnished the nursery, 
 and in which the propagation of eels from 
 horse-hair was carried on with the profound 
 faith of childhood ? 
 
 Eels generally shed their spawn in April ; 
 and, when not hindered, they almost invariably 
 choose an estuary, where they scatter the spawn 
 loosely in the sand or soil. But that an annual 
 visit to the sea is by no means necessary to 
 their existence is proved by the fact that many 
 eels who inhabit inland ponds and lakes never 
 go to the sea at all. A gentleman digging in 
 the month of October in the gravel banks of the 
 river Stour found the place " alive with young 
 eels, some of them scarcely hatched, at the 
 depth of from five to fifteen inches ;" and at one 
 of the meetings of the British Association for the 
 Advancement of Science a member stated that he 
 had seen a considerable number of young eels rise
 
 AXD OF STILL WATERS. 9 
 
 up through a small opening in the sand at the 
 bottom of a small stream, the Ravensbourne. 
 The greater number of eels, however, do visit 
 the sea, and the " passing up " a river of the 
 young eels is one of the most curious sights of 
 natural history. 
 
 This passage of young eels is called eelfare on 
 the banks of the Thames; and it has been 
 thought by some that the term elver, which on 
 the banks of the Severn is used indiscriminately 
 for all young eels, is a corruption of the word 
 eelfare. In the Thames this eelfare takes place 
 in the spring, in other rivers in the summer; 
 and some idea of the numbers of these young 
 eels, each about three inches long, may be 
 gathered from the record of Dr. William Roots, 
 who lived at Kingston in 1832. He calculated 
 that from sixteen to eighteen hundred passed a 
 given point in the space of one minute of time. 
 These baby eels travel only by day and rest by 
 night. In large and deep rivers, where they 
 probably find the current strong, they form 
 themselves into a closely compacted company, 
 " a narrow but long-extended column," as it has
 
 io A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 been described ; but in less formidable streams 
 they abandon this arrangment, and travel, 
 each one more or less at his own sweet will, near 
 the bank. 
 
 The perseverance of these little creatures in 
 overcoming any obstructions they may encounter 
 is quite extraordinary. The large flood-gates, 
 sometimes twenty feet high, to be met with on 
 the Thames, might be supposed sufficient to 
 bar the progress of a fish the size of a darning- 
 needle. But young eels have a wholesome 
 idea that nothing can stop them ; consequently 
 nothing does. As one writer says, speaking of 
 the way in which they ascend flood-gates and 
 suchlike barriers, " Those which die stick to the 
 posts ; others which get a litile higher meet 
 with the same fate, until at last a sufficient 
 layer of them is formed to enable the rest to 
 overcome the difficulty of the passage." The 
 mortality resulting from such " forlorn hopes " 
 greatly helps to account for the difference in 
 the number of young eels on their upward 
 migration, and of those who return down stream 
 in the autumn. In some places these baby
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 11 
 
 eels are much sought after, and are formed into 
 cakes, which are eaten fried. 
 
 The term elver, which, as we have said, is in 
 some places indiscriminately used to denote all 
 young eels, in reality belongs only to the 
 " transparent " eels, occasionally to be found 
 among their more opaque brethren. These 
 elvers are so transparent that most of the 
 internal organs and the action of the heart and 
 blood-vessels can easily be seen. They have 
 been found with the characteristics of both 
 sharp-nosed and broad-nosed eels ; and there 
 is no particular season for their appearance, 
 for they have been caught in winter and 
 summer. In spite of their transparency, or 
 rather on account of it, they have remained one 
 of the many mysteries of the eel family. 
 
 One of the greatest peculiarities possessed by 
 eels is that they have a second heart situated in 
 the extremity of their tails ; and, of course, in 
 the transparent elvers the action of this heart 
 can be more easily noted than in the ordinary 
 eels. In all, however, its action is plainly 
 manifest, especially if the fish has been out of
 
 12 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 water any time or is exhausted, a fact known 
 to the street vendors of live eels, who therefore 
 are careful to cover their eels with sand to hide 
 the caudal pulsations. Dr. Marshall Hall, 
 who in 1831 discovered this secondary heart, 
 says of it that "the action of this caudal 
 heart is entirely independent of the pulmonic 
 heart ; while the latter beats sixty, the former 
 beats one hundred and sixty times in a minute. 
 It continues for a very long time after the 
 influence of the pulmonic heart is entirely re- 
 moved." It is probably owing to this caudal heart 
 that the eel's tail is so highly sensitive and so 
 strong. Eels can use their tails almost like hands ; 
 for instance, if confined to a tank or bucket, 
 they will grasp the edge with this hand-like 
 tail, and by its help lift themselves bodily over. 
 Eels are very clean feeders ; if possible, they 
 like their food alive, and in all cases it is most 
 essential that it should be fresh. Even the 
 slightest taint is too much for their keen sense 
 of smell and taste. They are sometimes seen 
 cropping the leaves of watercresses, and other 
 aquatic plants, as they float about in the 
 water; but as a rule their food is altogether
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 13 
 
 animal. They are immense devourers of spawn 
 of all kinds of fish. There are certain well- 
 known spawning-grounds in the Norfolk 
 Broads, where the roach and bream collect in 
 vast numbers to spawn in the spring. To 
 these grounds the eels follow in hundreds. Mr. 
 Davies, in his pleasant book on " Norfolk 
 Broads and Rivers," speaks of this, and adds : 
 " You can hear the eels sucking away at the 
 spawn in the weeds ; and they gorge themselves 
 to such an extent that they will lie motionless 
 on their backs on the gravel, with distended 
 stomachs ; and when caught by the bab they will 
 frequently die during the night, instead of living 
 for days, as an eel will otherwise do in a boat." 
 There are a good many ways of catching 
 eels ; the commonest, of course, being by the 
 eel-bucks so often to be met with on the Thames. 
 Eel-bucks intended to catch the sharp-nosed or 
 frog-mouthed eels are set against the stream, 
 and are set at night, as those two descriptions 
 of eels feed and run only at night. The snig 
 eel, which is chiefly found in Hampshire, feeds 
 by day ; and fishermen have found by experi- 
 ence that snigs are taken in the eel-bucks only
 
 14 A BOOK: OF THE RUNNING BROOK : 
 
 if they are set with the stream, instead of against 
 it. In Norfolk, where immense quantities of 
 eels are caught every year, the capture is 
 mostly effected by eel-sets, which are nets set 
 across the stream, and in which the sharp-nosed 
 eel is the one almost invariably taken. 
 
 Besides these eel-sets, however, the Norfolk 
 Broadmen use " babs," a mode of fishing which 
 can hardly be called sport in any sense. The 
 " bab," or " clod," as it is sometimes called, is 
 a number of lobworms threaded on pieces of 
 worsted, and all tied up in a bunch not unlike a 
 small mop. The bab is then tied on to the end 
 of a cord attached to a stout pole. The eel's 
 teeth get entangled in the worsted as soon as 
 he attempts to take the bab, and he can then 
 be lifted out of the water into the boat, if the 
 angler be in one, or else allowed to drop off the 
 line into a pail, which the angler puts on the 
 bank at a convenient distance from his standing- 
 place. Norfolk " babbers " frequently catch 
 four stone weight of eels to a boat per night, 
 especially in the spawning-grounds. 
 
 Night-lines also are much used for eels. 
 These are long lines, weighted heavily at each
 
 AXD OF STILL WATERS. 15 
 
 end and in the middle, and garnished with baited 
 hooks one yard apart. " Sniggling," immortalized 
 by Mr. Burnand in his " Happy Thoughts," 
 is one of the most favourite ways of catching 
 eels, while " Stitchering," a Hampshire method, 
 is perhaps one of the most amusing, though the 
 stitcherer probably catches fewer eels than any 
 other eel-hunter. The only apparatus used is an 
 old sickle, worn short and chipped so as to present 
 something of a saw-like edge. This is tied 
 firmly on to a light pole about twelve feet long. 
 Armed with this the stitcherer betakes himself 
 to the water meadows. In the wide deep 
 drains used for irrigation eels abound ; and the 
 object of the stitcherer is to thrust the sickle 
 under the eel's body, and, with a sudden hoist, 
 to land him on the bank, from which he is 
 transferred to the bag. That you have every 
 chance, when on a Stitchering party, of having 
 your eye poked out, or your ear sawn off, of 
 course only adds the necessary amount of 
 danger and pleasurable excitement, without 
 which all sport is tame. 
 
 Of all forms of eel capture, however, there is 
 none to compare to spearing, of which there are
 
 l6 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 two methods. The Norfolkmen mostly use 
 " picks " formed of four broad blades, spread 
 out like a fan, between which the eels get 
 wedged. These are mounted on long slender 
 poles, to enable them to be thrust into the mud, 
 where the " picker " notices the tell-tale bubbles 
 rise, denoting the presence of " Anguilla." 
 Eel-spearing of this kind takes place chiefly in 
 winter, but there is another form of the sport 
 called " sun-spearing," which is much sought 
 after in the Irish loughs during the months of 
 June and July. In the early sunny mornings 
 at that time of the year, when the water seems 
 to be principally composed of sunbeams, with a 
 little hydrogen and oxygen added, the sun- 
 spearer sallies forth in any little boat he can 
 lay his hands on. Standing up in the bows, 
 and, if alone, using his spear to propel the boat 
 gently along, he steals over the crystal waters 
 of the lough. Presently he sees the gleam of 
 the " silver " eel as he lies quietly at length on 
 the sandy bottom. The spearer takes aim ; 
 there is a sudden " splitting of the atmosphere," 
 as Mark Twain would say, a splash, and either
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 17 
 
 Anguilla comes up writhing on the twelve close- 
 set teeth of the sun-spear, or the spearer has 
 taken a header into ten feet of water. If he is a 
 tyro at the apparently simple art of sun-spearing, 
 it may safely be prognosticated that, when he 
 makes acquaintance with the eel he is after, the 
 meeting will be more likely to take place under 
 water than above it. 
 
 Eels have the immense merit in the eyes of 
 all careful people that they more than repay any 
 cultivation bestowed upon them. There is 
 always a demand for eels, and they seem never 
 to be out of season. The London market is 
 chiefly supplied from Holland, the eels being 
 brought over alive in welled vessels. Queen 
 Elizabeth gave a free mooring to these Dutch 
 skoots, and this privilege has been taken 
 advantage of up to the present time. The 
 Dutch eels, however, are very much inferior in 
 flavour to the English, and it seems, therefore, 
 somewhat a pity that they should have almost a 
 monopoly of the London Market. The Norfolk 
 eels, caught in such huge quantities, are nearly 
 all sent to Birmingham and the Black Country. 
 
 c
 
 1 8 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK. 
 
 In Scotland eels are looked upon with abhor- 
 rence, consequently eel fisheries may be said 
 not to exist there. In Ireland, however, the eel 
 fisheries are enormously valuable ; the eel weirs 
 on the Erne are said to bring in five or six 
 thousand pounds sterling a year. At Balliso- 
 dare the eel fisheries were found to be greatly 
 increased in value by the hanging of loosely- 
 plaited ropes of straw or hay over any ob- 
 structions likely to bar the course of the 
 elvers up stream. The ropes act as ladders, up 
 which the elvers safely climb, and the immense 
 annual destruction we have already spoken of 
 is thus averted. 
 
 Eels cost but little to cultivate, never fail to 
 find a good market, and are one of the richest 
 and most nutritious forms of food possible to 
 have. The late Frank Buckland showed his 
 usual good sense when he declared that the 
 English eel fisheries were not half developed, 
 and that they deserved considerably more at- 
 tention than they had hitherto got. That they 
 should soon get this attention must be the hope 
 of all those who do not like to see the good 
 gifts of nature contemptuously thrown away.
 
 WATER-WOLVES 
 
 C 2
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WATER-WOLVES. 
 
 F water-wolves had nothing more 
 to recommend them than the 
 possession of the same amiable 
 characteristics of strength, fierce- 
 ness, and voracity as those of their 
 warm-blooded namesakes, they would by now 
 be as near extinction as their four-footed 
 prototypes. But the water-wolf or pike has 
 one immense merit, which, in spite of his 
 many vices, makes him worthy of even 
 more attention than he usually obtains 
 he is a most toothsome morsel when he has 
 made proper acquaintance with the culinary art. 
 His merit was so well acknowledged in early 
 times that that worthy monarch, Edward I., 
 who saw no reason why his subjects should be 
 left to the mercy of a "Fish Ring," and there-
 
 22 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK : 
 
 fore condescended to regulate the prices of the 
 different sorts of fish then brought to market, 
 fixed the value of pike higher than that of fresh 
 salmon, and more than ten times greater than 
 that of the best turbot or cod. 
 
 Those patriarchal times have changed. Fish 
 Rings are no longer deposed by Fish Kings, 
 and fish goes up in price from year to year. 
 For fresh-water fish, always excepting trout, 
 there is no market at all, and yet food of such a 
 sustaining quality ought surely not to be in- 
 accessible to the great mass of the population. 
 That they do not despise what they can get 
 of it is sufficiently clear to the olfactory nerves 
 of any one who passes through the poor quarters 
 of our great towns at night. Fried Fish seem 
 to pervade the air, and, on closer inspection, 
 are even more unsavoury to the eyes than they 
 have already been to the nostrils. The refuse, 
 the sweepings out of the great fish-markets, the 
 fish that are too much " off colour " to be sold 
 otherwise all these easily account for the 
 atmosphere of Leather Lane and suchlike fra- 
 grant thoroughfares. Cheap food it may be ; 
 wholesome food it certainly cannot be ; for
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 23 
 
 unsoundness in fish is more absolutely poison- 
 ous than in any other class of food. And 
 yet, while our poor population are devouring at 
 comparatively high prices the offal of Billings- 
 gate, our inland lakes, ponds, and broads are 
 lying useless. We do not speak of the rivers ; 
 for the cultivation of such fish as pike and eels 
 in rivers would probably raise an outcry amongst 
 trout anglers, as trout have but little chance 
 against the strength and voracity of the water- 
 wolf. In ponds, large or small, however, pike 
 would well repay cultivation, for they both grow 
 and fatten with great rapidity. An increase of 
 four pounds weight a year is said to be an 
 ordinary average for a pike if well supplied with 
 food, but instances are quoted of an increase of 
 even ten and eleven pounds in the year. 
 
 " From the days of Gesner downwards," said 
 Mr. Frank Buckland, "more lies have been 
 told about the pike than any other fish in the 
 world," which is saying a good deal, since lies 
 are told so profusely about all animals, human 
 or otherwise, who are gifted with any remark- 
 able characteristics, whether pleasant or the 
 reverse. However, the many historians of the
 
 24 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 pike have hitherto kept clear of the super- 
 natural ; were-wolves and " loups-garou " have 
 no imitators amongst the finny tribes. A 
 ghostly pike, with lambent eyes and distended 
 jaws, is too fearful an idea to be entertained 
 for a moment. 
 
 But, if the pike historians have refrained from 
 enlarging on supernatural water-wolves, they 
 have by no means curtailed their imaginations 
 in their description of the real fish. The 
 Mannheim pike which attained a length of 
 nineteen feet, and was captured in 1497 at the 
 advanced age of two hundred and sixty-seven 
 years, having in its gills a brass ring, whereon 
 was engraved in Greek, " I am the first fish 
 that was placed in this pond by the hand of 
 Frederick II., Governor of the World, on the 
 5th of October, 1230," may certainly claim to 
 be the most marvellous pike on record. " Its 
 skeleton and ring were long preserved in the 
 Cathedral of Mannheim," says Mr. Pennell in 
 his " Book of the Pike," " but upon subsequent 
 examination by a clever anatomist, it was dis- 
 covered that the bones had been lengthened to
 
 AXD OF STILL WATERS. 25 
 
 fit the story in other words, that several ver- 
 tebrae had been added. Another writer, M. 
 Passon Maisonneuve, gives us further par- 
 ticulars concerning the ring namely, that it 
 was of ' Gilded brass,' and could ' enlarge itself 
 by springs ' a highly necessary qualification if 
 its wearer's growth is to be considered, and one 
 which would seem not to be confined to this 
 portion of the story alone." 
 
 Putting aside such-like monsters, which seem 
 to be, in the words of Polonius, " very like a 
 whale," most veracious historians agree that 
 the pike rarely exceeds 40 Ibs. in weight, at all 
 events in these islands. That he should not be 
 allowed to do so is certain from a gastronomical 
 point of view, seeing that a young pike or jack 
 increases in weight at the rate of 4 Ibs. per 
 annum during the earlier portions of his life, 
 but that after twelve years he diminishes each 
 year by i Ib. to 2 Ibs., a rate of diminution 
 increasing as his age advances. Young pike 
 are the best for eating, and by connoisseurs 
 those of moderate size are much preferred to 
 either small or large fish.
 
 26 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 The ways of cooking pike are as many and 
 various as his quality deserves. He can be 
 roasted, boiled, braised, stuffed ; he can be 
 disguised " a la Chambord," with mushrooms, 
 onions, and cockscombs; "a 1'Egyptienne," 
 with gherkins, eggs, truffles, and port wine ; " a 
 la meuniere," " a la maitre-d'hotel," " en mate- 
 lote," and a hundred other ways; in all of 
 which he is superexcellent. And if he is thus 
 savoury and delightful in his last hour, how 
 much more is he worthy of all praise when he is 
 alive from the angler who loves true sport. He 
 is no miserable little trout, who will even allow 
 himself to be tickled out of his native stream. 
 The angler who means to compass the death of 
 a water-wolf, " this solitary, melancholy, and 
 bold fish," as Walton calls him, must have iron 
 nerves ; for fishermen have been known to 
 "drop their rods in sheer terror" at the first 
 rush of a pike on its prey. 
 
 As to what that prey may be the pike is not 
 particular. Literally "all is fish that comes to 
 his " jaws, with only two exceptions, a tench and 
 a toad. There is a fond superstition that
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 27 
 
 accounts for the pike's leniency towards the 
 tench on the ground that the latter is the pike's 
 physician; and Camden in his " Britannia " was 
 not afraid to say, " I have seen the bellies of 
 pikes which have been rent open have their 
 gaping wounds presently closed by the touch of 
 the tench, and by his glutinous slime perfectly 
 healed up." It is true that it would be question- 
 able sanity on the part of the pike to eat his 
 doctor ; but the fact that the pike's eyes are on 
 the top of his head, and that the tench lives at 
 the bottom of the muddiest w r ater he can find, 
 may have something to do with this self-denial 
 on the part of the water-wolf. 
 
 His own species enjoy no immunity from his 
 universal greed; and there is good reason for 
 believing that more young pickerels are devoured 
 by their parents than by all their other enemies 
 put together, not excepting eels, who, however, 
 account to some extent for the enormous 
 difference between the eggs found in the roe of 
 the female pike and the comparatively small 
 number of pike to be found in our rivers. Mr. 
 Frank Buckland tells of a pike which was sent
 
 28 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 to him, having been caught with rod and line in 
 the Norfolk Broads. It weighed 32 Ibs., five of 
 which were represented by the roe, which con- 
 tained no less than 595,200 eggs. In another 
 pike, weighing 28 Ibs., he found 292,320 eggs. 
 It is evident, therefore, that the struggle for 
 existence comes to young pickerels at a very 
 early age, and that, when stocking either rivers 
 or ponds, care should be taken to select pike as 
 nearly of the same size and age as may be, so 
 that the doctrine of the " survival of the fittest " 
 should not be demonstrated after a time by the 
 solitary presence of one ferocious monster. 
 
 If the comparatively small number of pike 
 that survive out of the millions of eggs deposited 
 is worthy of note, still more marvellous is the 
 apparently spontaneous generation of pickerels 
 in ponds where pike have never existed. Izaak 
 Walton, like all other writers on fish, noticed 
 this mysterious peculiarity; but, unable to 
 account for it otherwise, he was inclined to 
 adopt one of the romances of Gesner and his 
 contemporaries. " It has been observed," he 
 says of pike, " that where none have been put
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 29 
 
 into ponds, yet they have there found many ; 
 . . . 'tis not to be doubted but that they are 
 bred, some by generation and some not, as 
 namely of a weed called pickerel-weed unless 
 learned Gesner be much mistaken ; for he says 
 this weed and other glutinous matter, with the 
 help of the sun's heat, in some particular months 
 and some ponds apted for it by nature, do 
 become pikes." The " glutinous matter," which 
 the reverend angler wisely mentions, probably 
 represented the spawn of some stray pike, for 
 these fish are particularly fond of lying in beds 
 of pickerel-weed, and depositing their spawn 
 therein. 
 
 Pike have a curious instinct which sometimes 
 causes them to embark on land-journeys in 
 search of food. Mr. Newnham, an English 
 resident at Antwerp, in order to test this theory 
 of migration, made two new ponds, and stocked 
 one with pike and the other with small fresh- 
 water fish, such as dace, roach, and barbel. 
 After two days he had both ponds emptied, 
 when it was discovered that many of the pike 
 had travelled by some means or other from
 
 30 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 their own pond into that of their neighbours ; 
 and had devoured the greater part of them. 
 That these pike should have taken less than two 
 days to think out their marauding plan, and put 
 it in practice, is an additional proof that the 
 water-wolf is at least possessed of a prompt and 
 decided character. These Antwerp pike attained 
 their end (and that of the small fry), but another 
 pike on record came near having a different 
 fate. He adorned the Aquarium at the Zoo- 
 logical Gardens. One night the glass tank in 
 which he lived broke, and the water- wolf, not 
 appreciating being left thus high and dry, was 
 found next morning by the keeper at a distance 
 of twenty-four yards away, making for a piece 
 of water. Fortunately for him, he was not 
 allowed to reach it, for that pond contained the 
 otters, who would no doubt have greatly appre- 
 ciated a morning call from a fine young pike. 
 
 The pike therefore is decidedly an exception 
 to the rule that fish have little or no intelligence. 
 Even the size of his brain is worthy of respect. 
 Its proportionate size as compared to the rest of 
 the body is as x to 1,300; in the shark, whose
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 31 
 
 intelligence has so often been vaunted, it is 
 only as i to 2,500 ; while in the tunny it is but 
 as i to 3,700. The only thing that dulls the 
 pike's intelligence is his greed ; but even this 
 may perhaps be caused by only an overweening 
 confidence in his own gastric juices. With him 
 as with so many other voracious animals, to swal- 
 low seems to be his only joy ; palate he has little 
 or none. Indeed, what an ill opinion of his 
 powersof discrimination our ancestors had maybe 
 gathered from Sir Hugh Plat, who, in his "Jewel- 
 house of Art and Nature," published in 1653, 
 gives the recipe for the following toothsome 
 morsel : " Fill a sheep's gut with small un- 
 slaked limestones, and tie the same well at both 
 ends, that no water get therein ; and, if any 
 Pike devour it (as they are a ravening fish and 
 very likely to do), she dieth in a short time." 
 Even a pike's " most strongly and rapidly dis- 
 solving gastric juices," as Dr. Fleming calls 
 them, could hardly be expected to do justice to 
 such a morsel. 
 
 That wise woman of ancient days, Dame 
 Juliana Berners, paid special attention to the
 
 32 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 capture of the pike ; and certainly the following 
 quaint instructions that she gave concerning the 
 most suitable bait are composed in somewhat 
 of a kinder spirit than is the recipe of Sir Hugh 
 Plat: 
 
 " Take a codlynge hoke, and take a roche or a fresh 
 heeryng, and a wyre with an hole in the ende, and put it 
 in at the mouth, and out at the taylle, down by the ridge 
 of the fresh heeryng, and thenne put the hoke in after, 
 and drawe the hoke into the cheke of the fresshe heeryng ; 
 then put a plumbe of lead upon your lyne a yarde longe 
 from your hoke, and a flote in midwaye betwene ; and 
 cast it in a pytte where the pyke usyth, and this is the 
 best and moost surest crafte of takynge the pyke. An- 
 other manere of takynge him there is ; take a frosshe [frog] 
 and put it on your hoke, at the necke, betwene the skynne 
 and the body, on the backe half, and put on a flote a 
 yarde therefro, and caste it where the pyke hauntyth, and 
 ye shall have hym. Another manere : take the same 
 bayte, and put it in assafetida, and caste it in the water 
 wyth a corde and a corke, and ye shall not fayl of hym." 
 
 Such an attraction as a frog dipped in as- 
 safcetida would surely be strong enough to 
 tempt even the most gorged of pikes from his 
 lair. But even this voracity, which is so unani- 
 mously dwelt upon by pike historians, and so 
 unfailingly taken advantage of by pike anglers, 
 is one of his great sporting merits. A pike is
 
 AND OF STILL WA TERS. 33 
 
 " game " throughout his whole existence ; fear 
 is to him unknown, he will attack anything or 
 any one ; even otters and men, his two most 
 redoubtable enemies, inspire him with no terror. 
 He is game to the last ; and even when landed 
 by his captor he fights on. Is it not recorded 
 by that immortal sportsman, Mr. Briggs, that a 
 pike not only bites, but " barks like a dog " ? 
 Bite he certainly does, and woe betide any 
 triumphant sportsman who is in too great a 
 hurry when disengaging the hooks from his 
 victim's mouth. The roles of captor and 
 captive will be momentarily reversed, and the 
 great canine teeth, the " serried pikes " of the 
 water-wolfs mouth, will go near to meeting in 
 his victim's hand. 
 
 Courageous and intelligent in life, succulent 
 and savoury in death, what more can any fish 
 be expected to be ? And all pike-anglers will 
 agree that no sea-fishing, except, perhaps, 
 conger-catching, can be compared for excite- 
 ment to the half-hour following the first 
 " strike," when trolling or spinning for the 
 " solitary, melancholy, and bold " water- wolf.
 
 CARP CULTURE 
 
 D 2
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 
 CARP CULTURE. 
 
 HE carp is the queen of rivers ; a 
 stately, a good, and a very subtil 
 fish," says Izaak Walton, and none 
 of these grave utterances may 
 be gainsaid. " Stately, good, and 
 subtil," indeed, is the carp ; and especially 
 does he deserve the latter epithet, as all who 
 have fished for him will agree. 
 
 No fish requires greater patience on the part 
 of the angler. Shyness, intelligence, and 
 caprice are the very essence of the carp's 
 nature, and no fish poet has failed to notice the 
 carp's intelligence. 
 
 " Of all the fish that swim the watery mead, 
 Not one in cunning can the carp exceed," 
 
 is an expression of opinion quoted by Daniel in
 
 38 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 his " Rural Sports," and another writer chimes 
 in, 
 
 " The perch an idiot, and the carp a wit." 
 Both the brain and the nerves of the ear are 
 very highly developed in the carp. Professor 
 Owen says that " the average proportion of the 
 size of the brain to that of the body in fishes is 
 one in three thousand ;" and Couch maintains 
 that " in the carp, according to Blumenbach, it 
 amounts to one in five hundred; this extra- 
 ordinary development in the carp existing also 
 in the portion of that centre of intelligence 
 termed the prosencephalon, or what most 
 nearly answers to the cerebrum, or seat of 
 understanding, in the higher animals." It is no 
 wonder, therefore, that it is seldom that a carp 
 allows himself to be deluded by the wiles of his 
 human enemies. Even old Walton, who ex- 
 celled in the angler's chief virtue, seems to have 
 been sorely tried by the " queen of rivers," for 
 he begins his instructions to his pupil anent this 
 fish in a manner which has something in com- 
 mon with Mrs. Glasse's famous receipt about the 
 hare.
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 39 
 
 ' ' I will proceed to give you some observations of the 
 carp," says the Father of the Rod, "how to angle for 
 him, and to dress him, but not till he is caught . 
 and my first direction is, that if you will fish for a carp, 
 you must put on a very large measure of patience, . . . 
 and beind possessed with that hope and patience, which 
 I wish to all fishers, especially to the carp-angler, I 
 shall tell you with what bait to fish for him." 
 
 Authorities are not unanimous as to the date 
 of the first introduction of carp into England, 
 but as it is mentioned as a " deyntous fysshe, 
 but scarce," in the Boke of St. Albans, printed 
 by Wynkyn de Worde at Westminster in 1496, 
 it is pretty obvious that Leonard Mascall was 
 wrong when he claimed in 1600 to have been 
 the introducer of this fish into English waters. 
 In the Privy Purse expenses of King Henry the 
 Eighth in 1532, are to be found various items 
 of rewards given to persons who brought " carpes 
 to the king." To those persons who have a 
 fancy for trying out-of-the-way dishes, we would 
 recommend Ben Jonson's tempting recipe, 
 
 "The tongues of carps, dormice, and camels' heels 
 Boiled in the spirit of Sol." 
 
 It is generally believed that these fish were
 
 40 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 first brought over to England by monks who were 
 wise enough to appreciate their merits. Carp 
 were peculiarly well fitted to receive the atten- 
 tion of monasteries, for no fish were better 
 adapted to thrive in the stews and fishponds 
 where the monks of old usually kept their finny 
 live-stock. 
 
 Most fish that do well in ponds yet would 
 prefer a river, but the carp, on the contrary, 
 attains his greatest size and excellence only in 
 ponds. 
 
 Carp have been introduced into both Ireland 
 and Scotland, but in the latter country the 
 efforts to establish them have not been success- 
 ful. In most places in Scotland they either do 
 not breed at all, or they breed very slowly, 
 which, for so remarkably prolific a fish, is 
 curious. However, the endless caprices of carp 
 must be accepted. 
 
 Professor Spencer F. Baird, United States 
 Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, was the 
 first American who saw how very important the 
 question of food-fish was becoming. After 
 many investigations carried on chiefly in
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 41 
 
 Europe, he decided in favour of experi- 
 mentalizing on carp, and began operations by 
 importing some from one of the breeding esta- 
 blishments in Germany. Captain Milton Pierce, 
 Secretary of the American Carp Cultural Asso- 
 ciation, gives a most interesting account of the 
 breeding from these imported German carp, 
 and the efforts to improve on them, until at last 
 these efforts were crowned with success by the 
 production of the scaleless American carp. 
 " It has been our aim for years." says this 
 triumphant carp culturist, " to breed from those 
 specimens having the least quantity of scales, 
 and this scaleless carp is simply the result of 
 this careful breeding. It is practical evolution 
 from full scale to scaleless types." 
 
 The Americans are the first who have devoted 
 so much attention to this question of scales v. 
 no scales. This sublimated and scaleless type 
 of carp, which should be " as smooth as a frog," 
 is peculiarly the result of American breeding. 
 The Germans have three kinds of carp, which 
 are known as scale, leather, and mirror carp, 
 but none of these are as perfect either in shape
 
 42 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 or in quality as their scaleless American 
 cousin. 
 
 In France little or no attention is given to 
 the scale question, and the carp-breeding there, 
 though most extensive and lucrative, is carried 
 on in an unsystematic manner, differing entirely 
 from that advocated elsewhere. Those who 
 have visited the highlands of the Limousin, will 
 have noticed ponds of all sizes, many of them 
 large enough to be dignified by the more 
 grandiloquent name of lakes, but to the 
 country people one and all etangs and 
 nothing more. These ponds are among the 
 chief sources of wealth of the country, which 
 is mostly but poor soil for cultivation, as a great 
 part of it has only recently been reclaimed from 
 moorland and heather ; they are stocked with 
 carp, and once every three years a great fishing 
 takes place. 
 
 All the able-bodied men of the country-side 
 are engaged for a certain day in October to 
 meet at one of the ponds ; that on the highest 
 level being taken first. The sluices are opened 
 three days previously, and the water allowed to
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 43 
 
 run gradually off, leaving that bed of deep mud 
 which seems to be one of the necessaries of 
 carp existence. When there is only a thin rill 
 of water left trickling down the centre of the 
 erstwhile pond, the fishing begins. On all 
 sides the carp lie floundering, panting, gasping 
 on the expanse of mud ; in some places they 
 are two or three deep on top of one another. 
 Though the quantity of carp in these ponds is 
 something extraordinary, they do not seem to 
 suffer individually from their great numbers ; 
 for the fish are remarkably fine and heavy. 
 
 The men wade through the mud, catching the 
 carp by the gills, and flinging them on to the 
 bank. There they are weighed by men who 
 have come with carts from the nearest town to 
 buy the fish ; and after the weighing the carp 
 are packed amongst straw in the carts as tightly 
 as possible. When the carts are full they 
 return to the town, and the carp are then 
 placed in tanks. A carp takes a good deal of 
 killing; and though being tightly packed in 
 straw for a whole day and jolted down-hill for 
 perhaps four hours may strike him as a novel
 
 44 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 experience, it does not do him the very least 
 harm ; as soon as he is released from durance 
 vile and placed in the tanks, he resumes the 
 even tenour of his way, probably till the follow- 
 ing Lent, when, as carpe au bleu, carpe en 
 matelote, carpe au vin blanc, and in many other 
 still more savoury disguises, he helps the faith- 
 ful Catholic through his forty days' trial. 
 
 While the fishing goes on, groups of women 
 make fires on the bank, and they heat 
 cauldrons of soup, mixed with strong red wine, 
 which is served out unceasingly in bowls to the 
 soaked and muddy fishermen. This is a 
 necessary precaution in a climate where people 
 are sometimes snowed up for days early in 
 November. The gipsy fires and groups of 
 women, the men wading through the mud and 
 water, mostly dressed in frieze coats of the 
 most brilliant hues, and with high boots to 
 protect them somewhat during their task ; the 
 piles of shining, glistening fish ; and, in the 
 background, the carts waiting to take away the 
 spoils, altogether make a highly picturesque 
 scene.
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 45 
 
 Amongst the carp are always found a number 
 of pike, one of the mysteries of pisciculture, for 
 the very greatest care is taken to eliminate them 
 from the ponds on account of the immense 
 damage they do. As the ponds are drained 
 dry, and completely re-stocked every three years, 
 one would imagine that the extermination of 
 the pike would not be a very difficult matter ; 
 but when the triennial fishing takes place, the 
 irrepressible pike is again to the fore. As soon 
 as the fishing is over in one pond the sluices 
 are closed, and the pond allowed to fill gradually, 
 while the fishermen betake themselves to any 
 other ponds that are to be fished the same year, 
 according to the date of their re-stocking. 
 When the empty ponds are again full of water, 
 the breeding-pond is drawn upon to supply 
 young fish. This breeding-pond is never drained 
 dry of water. When young fish are required, 
 the breeding-pond is drawn with nets, and only 
 young fish are taken ; the old ones are returned 
 to their home to breed undisturbed, while 
 their progeny are translated to the fishing-ponds 
 for their allotted span of three years.
 
 46 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 Of the profit to be derived from this form of 
 pisciculture, some idea may be gathered from 
 the fact that half a franc a pound is the price 
 given for the fish when weighed on the bank of 
 the pond in which they have been caught. 
 There is no expense in seeking a market, with 
 possible loss on the fish by the way in fact, no 
 expense of any kind except the pay of men and 
 boys employed in the triennial take, which is but 
 a small item in comparison to the enormous 
 profit on the hundreds of heavy fish which have 
 cost absolutely nothing up to the time of the 
 sale. It is no wonder, therefore, that the 
 landed proprietors in the department of Correze 
 consider that the acres under water are infinitely 
 more profitable and far safer investments in 
 every way than those under agriculture. We 
 islanders are too apt to think scornfully of any 
 freshwater fish except trout, but the French can 
 teach us as much in this part of the great 
 question of food supply as in the others. It has 
 often been said that a Frenchman will live 
 succulently where an Englishman will nearly 
 starve ; and when we see all our ponds and
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS, 
 
 47 
 
 inland broads lying unused and their capa- 
 bilities of supporting and fattening fish wasted, 
 we must feel in all humility that our French 
 brethren make a better use of the bountiful 
 gifts of Nature than we do.
 
 COUSINS OF THE CARP
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 COUSINS OF THE CARP. 
 
 IF all freshwater fish that are worth 
 cultivation for the table the tench 
 gives the least trouble. Almost any 
 pond will suit his contented mind ; 
 like the modest violet, he shuns the 
 " eager eye of day," and the deeper and quieter 
 the pool in which he is placed, the better he 
 is pleased. To him as to his near relation and 
 close ally, the carp, swift rivers are distasteful ; 
 gravelly beds, clear running water, are abomi- 
 nations. A deep quiet pond, with a bottom of 
 mud, in which he can find the larvae upon which 
 he principally subsists, is more to his mind ; or, 
 better still, one of those deep pits from which 
 clay has been dug for bricks. When these pits 
 are filled with water, tench thrive greatly therein ; 
 the quiet which is conducive to meditation 
 E 2
 
 52 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 seems also conducive to adipose tissue, and in 
 such situations tench grow fat and multiply in a 
 manner most edifying to their proprietor. 
 
 Tench are found in most slow-running rivers 
 and ponds in Europe ; and in many places are 
 greatly esteemed for the table. In England 
 they are found in great quantities in Norfolk 
 and Suffolk, and also in the Southern and 
 Midland counties, but further north they gradu- 
 ally diminish. In Scotland they are rare, and the 
 few instances of their presence there have to be 
 accounted for by Yarrell by the fact that the 
 ponds in which they exist are supplied solely by 
 rain-water the hard spring water of Scotland 
 being utterly unsuited to the requirements of 
 tench. However, if rain-water were the only thing 
 wanted for a tench's happiness, it seems strange 
 that he should not thrive under Scotch skies. 
 
 Tench are pretty widely distributed in Ireland, 
 for they are known to exist in ponds in the 
 counties of Cork, Dublin, and Kilkenny. The 
 non-appearance of the tench in the North is 
 probably owing to his dislike of cold. In the 
 winter he generally buries himself in the mud,
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 53 
 
 and, as Couch remarks, " there lies concealed, 
 perhaps for a longer time than is pleasing to 
 himself, although from the power he possesses 
 of extracting the minutest portions of air from 
 almost exhausted water, he continues to live 
 where other fish must have perished." This 
 peculiarity has afforded scope for experiments, 
 which have proved that the tench is able to 
 breathe when the quantity of oxygen is reduced 
 to the five-thousandth part of the bulk of water ; 
 ordinary river-water generally containing one 
 per cent, of oxygen. Dr. Roget observes " that 
 this fact shows the admirable perfection of the 
 organs of this fish, which can extract so minute 
 a quantity of air from water, to which that air 
 adheres with great tenacity." Obviously the 
 power to live under circumstances which would 
 kill many other fish, greatly increases the value 
 of the tench as a marketable commodity. Like 
 his cousin the carp, he can be conveyed long 
 distances to market, packed in straw or wet 
 moss, and if not sold, can be brought back to 
 the pond or stew whence he was taken, to 
 await another occasion for sale.
 
 54 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK; 
 
 In England the merits of the tench as food 
 are but little known, a remark that could 
 equally be applied to many other good and 
 wholesome articles of food in favour with our 
 more enlightened Continental neighbours. In 
 France and Italy tench are highly esteemed ; 
 even in small country towns in France as much 
 as one franc and upwards a pound is given for 
 them. In Holland tench are considered a 
 first-rate delicacy, equal to turtle. 
 
 Much of the excellence of tench, however, 
 depends upon their feeding ; but this may be 
 said to be the case with all fish as well as 
 animals. Frank Buckland says that " the 
 natural food both of carp and tench is the 
 larvae of insects, small worms, and the soft 
 parts of various aquatic plants," and Mr. Gill- 
 bank, an eminent botanist and a friend of Mr. 
 Buckland, adds that " the water in which they 
 (tench) are placed cannot be too soft." The 
 slime at the bottom of ponds in which tench 
 love to bury themselves does not seem to affect 
 their flavour. Yarrell mentions some tench 
 who were taken out of Munden Hall Fleet in
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 55 
 
 Essex, " which was so thick with weeds that the 
 flew-nets could hardly be sunk through them, 
 and where the mud was intolerably foetid, and 
 had dyed the fish of its own colour, which was 
 that of ink, yet no tench could be better grown 
 or of a sweeter flavour ; many were taken that 
 weighed nine and some ten pounds the brace." 
 It would have been simpler to have given the 
 weight of any individual fish, as the above 
 method of reckoning is apt to remind the 
 reader of the Yankee's boast about the mos- 
 quitoes of his native land " Many of them 
 would weigh a pound ! " Tench, however, do 
 attain a fine size, though not so great a one as 
 the carp, whom, however, they surpass in beauty 
 of colour and excellence of meat. Tench 
 seldom attain a greater weight in this country 
 than seven or eight pounds, though in Italy they 
 sometimes grow to twenty pounds. The usual 
 weight of tench in small ponds is from two to 
 three pounds, and this average is attained only 
 under favourable circumstances as regards 
 water, numbers, and feeding. In 1874 a tench 
 was taken at Sonning that weighed five pounds,
 
 56 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK : 
 
 and at Elstree Reservoir, one year when the 
 water was very low, a number of tench of three 
 and four pounds each were caught. Mr. Manley 
 mentions one glorious " take " of tench in the 
 Avon a few miles above Christchurch,at which he 
 assisted. With the help of nets, five tench were 
 taken averaging over five pounds each, the 
 largest weighing close upon six pounds. Such 
 splendid tench, however, are rare, and most 
 anglers for this wary fish esteem themselves 
 lucky if a day's sport produces several two- 
 pounders. 
 
 Yet in water that suits them tench are mar- 
 vellously prolific ; in a fish of four pounds' 
 weight Bloch counted nearly three hundred 
 thousand ova. They spawn about the middle 
 of June, or, as Willoughby remarks, " when the 
 wheat is in blossom." The development of 
 the grains of spawn is extraordinarily rapid. In 
 Muller's Archives for 1836 M. Rusconi ob- 
 served : 
 
 " Soon after the application of the milt the ovum loses 
 its spherical form, and swells out into the form of a pear, 
 and at the point where the swelling begins it is surrounded
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. $7 
 
 with a cluster of microscopic globules, which before were 
 spread all over its surface. In half an hour the pear- 
 shaped excrescence is divided into four globules, which 
 in another quarter of an hour are subdivided into eight, 
 and after a similar period into thirty-two, which still 
 remain clustered together on the top of the egg. In 
 another half-hour more globules appear, which become 
 less in size as they increase in numbers, and at length, 
 from their minuteness, that part of the egg to which they 
 are attached becomes almost as smooth as before they 
 made their appearance. The embryo fish is now seen in 
 the form of a whitish transparent speck, which is the 
 rudiment of the backbone. The organization of the skin 
 then proceeds, and the embryo as it is coiled round the 
 yoke increases in length until the head becomes percep- 
 tible. In forty hours from the first this embryo tench 
 gives signs of motion, and in further twelve hours it has 
 freed itself from the skin of the egg, at which time the 
 fish is two lines in length, and the blood is of its natural 
 colour. For some hours after leaving the egg the young 
 appear inert ; lying on their sides and unable to swim, 
 but when the swimming bladder becomes developed they 
 assume their proper position and activity." 
 
 In stocking ponds with tench it will be found 
 that the larger and finer the fish that are turned 
 down for breeding the better; it is the most 
 certain way of obtaining good-sized fish for 
 table in the shortest space of time. Ponds 
 should not be allowed to get over-stocked, and 
 from the breeding-pond the small fish should
 
 58 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 be withdrawn from time to time, and deposited 
 elsewhere as much for their own benefit as that 
 of their parents. Two males to one female is 
 the right proportion of the sexes amongst the 
 tench, and certainly not less than three to two 
 at the outside should be turned down for breed- 
 ing purposes. The male tench is easily dis- 
 tinguishable by the larger size of the ventral 
 fin, which, as Mr. Couch remarks, " has a stout, 
 thick, crooked, and transversely-striated first 
 ray." A mixture of greaves and meal is excel- 
 lent food for tench which are being kept for 
 the table ; and a well-fed tench is a most worthy 
 fish from a gastronomical point of view. 
 
 As regards his capabilities of affording sport 
 opinions differ, but most anglers seem to agree 
 that he is a most capricious fish. One day he 
 will take almost any bait offered to his notice ; 
 another, and another, and another, he will 
 ignore the angler's best worm so completely 
 that it would seem impossible that a tench ever 
 existed in the pond under notice. Mr. Francis 
 mentions an example of this. He was told by 
 the proprietor of a small pond in Hampshire
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 59 
 
 that it was full of fine tench. He fished all one 
 evening, and got only a miserable little half- 
 pounder, and would have given up in despair, 
 but the owner begged him to try again next 
 day. He did so, and was rewarded by catching 
 so many that at last he got tired of pulling them 
 out, and left off while the fish were yet biting 
 freely. He went back to the pond next day, 
 and caught one small tench; and, though he 
 returned on many occasions, in hope of resuming 
 the splendid sport he had had, he never caught 
 a single tench there again. Though tench 
 sometimes feed freely all day, their favourite 
 feeding-time is dusk, when the angler can 
 scarcely see his float. Tench, like bream, will 
 sometimes take the bait when standing on 
 their heads searching for food on the bottom ; 
 the angler's float then ceases to " cock," for the 
 leads on the line hang downwards from the 
 fish's mouth as he rises tail foremost. It 
 behoves the fisherman, therefore, to keep his 
 eyes open if he wishes to strike at the right 
 moment, which authorities maintain should be 
 only when he sees his float well carried off.
 
 60 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK : 
 
 On the Norfolk Broads, besides the numbers 
 of tench that are caught in bow-nets, there is a 
 curious local way of catching them, which, 
 though not so common as it used to be, is 
 still resorted to by the Broadmen. During the 
 hot summer days, and especially at the 
 spawning-time, tench love to bask on the 
 surface of the water. The approach of the fisher- 
 men in a boat disturbs them only sufficiently 
 to make them seek the shelter of the nearest 
 bed of reeds, to which the angler cautiously 
 follows them. He can see where any particular 
 fish has paused in his flight by the bubble 
 which rises when he stops, and, lowering one 
 hand cautiously under the fish, just behind the 
 gills, he raises it gently, yet rapidly, out of the 
 water and into the boat. The tench seems to 
 think that the fingers creeping under it are only 
 bits of weed ; but the tench-tickler must be 
 careful of two things one is, not to touch the 
 fish on the tail, as a violent dash away is the 
 immediate consequence ; and the other is, to 
 be cautious, in lifting the tench into the boat, 
 not to touch the gunwale with his knuckles, as
 
 AXD OF STILL WATERS. 61 
 
 the slightest jar wakes the fish from its pleasant 
 dream, and it will probably flounce out of its 
 captor's hand and escape a wiser, if not a 
 sadder, fish. In the " Fauna of Norfolk," the 
 Rev. M. Lubbock says that in the course of a 
 favourable day, a tench-tickler " would easily 
 secure five or six dozen ;" and Mr. Davies, in 
 his " Norfolk Broads and Rivers," mentions a 
 fisherman at Oulton who has frequently success- 
 fully " tickled " seventeen brace of large tench 
 in the course of a summer's afternoon. It is 
 a pity that this interesting mode of catching 
 tench should be on the wane, as Mr. Davies 
 affirms it to be ; bow-nets are probably one of 
 the causes of its decline, and a continuance of 
 cold wet summers is another, as tench are found 
 basking near the top of the water only in very 
 hot sunny weather, owing to their extreme sen- 
 sitiveness to cold. 
 
 Bream are, like tench, fond of still, quiet 
 waters with soft soil bottoms, in which they find 
 their chief sustenance. Izaak Walton speaks 
 highly of this " large and stately fish," as he calls 
 him, a name his appearance assuredly merits.
 
 62 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK : 
 
 The " Boke of St. Albans " calls him "a noble 
 fyssche and a deynteous." and gives particular 
 directions for catching him. Even as far back 
 as Chaucer bream were known and appreciated, 
 for that poet referred to them in his Prologue 
 to the " Canterbury Tales :" 
 
 " Full many a fair partrich haclde he in mewe 
 And many a Breme and many a Luce in stewe." 
 
 Sir William Dugdale states that in 1419, when 
 the labour of a skilled artisan was worth less 
 than sixpence a day, a single bream was valued 
 at twenty pence. In the " Pictorial History of 
 England," mention is made of a pie containing 
 four bream, which was sent from Warwickshire 
 to a distant part of Yorkshire, and cost sixteen 
 shillings; a proof that these fish must have 
 been highly valued to be thought worth sending 
 on such a long journey. 
 
 Bream, though not so common as carp and 
 tench, are found in most parts of England, 
 except Cornwall and Devonshire ; and in 
 Ireland they inhabit the lakes of the north. In 
 Lough Erne, that " fishiest " of lakes, bream
 
 AND OF STILL WA TERS. 63 
 
 abound in such enormous shoals that they make 
 a ripple on the water like a stiff breeze of wind. 
 Leland, in that quaint language so peculiar to 
 himself, says that " in Wales, not far from 
 Breckenok, in Llyn Senatham, which is in 
 bredth a mile, and a two miles of length, and 
 wher as it is depest a thirteen fadom, it berith 
 as the principale fisch a great numbre of 
 Bremes, and they appere in May in mighti 
 sculles. So that sumtime they breke large 
 nets ; and ons frayed appereth not in the bryme 
 of the water that yere againe." In many 
 places where bream abound nets are used for 
 taking them. In Ireland this is the case, where 
 the bream run to a very large size, attaining 
 sometimes twelve and fourteen pounds. They 
 are usually bought by the poorer classes, who 
 split and salt them to eat with their potatoes in 
 winter. In England the poorer classes are not 
 so wise; and in Norfolk, where bream swarm, 
 the amount of these fish formerly thrown away 
 in heaps to rot on the banks was an absolute 
 disgrace in a country where there is such 
 destitution as in England. Since the passing
 
 64 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 of the Norfolk and Suffolk Freshwater Fisheries 
 Act in 1877 this waste has happily been put a 
 stop to, as these immense quantities of fish 
 were caught by poachers dragging the rivers 
 with small-meshed nets. Most of the bream 
 caught in Norfolk are sent to towns such as 
 Manchester and Birmingham, where there are 
 large numbers of poor Jews, who buy the 
 bream at a low price for eating on fast-days. 
 It has been affirmed by Mr. Greville Fennell, 
 in the columns of the Field, that on Trent- 
 side bream are held in high estimation for the 
 table, and it is said that a bream weighing 
 17 Ibs. was once taken in the Trent. The one 
 drawback to a bream's gastronomical merit is 
 that he is furnished with a double row of 
 ribs, which correspond to those of the 
 herring, shad, and pilchard. But in a fish 
 of so large a size, it seems absurd to allow 
 this fact to militate much against him, when 
 herrings, whose diminutive bodies often seem 
 to contain nothing but bones, are so highly 
 appreciated. In France, bream are much eaten, 
 ten or twelve sous a pound being the usual
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 65 
 
 price in country towns. The old French 
 proverb, " Qui a breme peut bramer ses amis," 
 which Izaak Walton translates, " He that 
 hath breams in his pond is able to bid his 
 friend welcome," proves that in France a 
 bream, like good wine, " needs no bush." 
 
 But though opinions may differ in our 
 enlightened land as to a bream's toothsome- 
 ness, all authorities agree as to his merits as 
 a "sporting" fish. His deep sides give him 
 immense advantages in offering resistance. 
 Mr. Manley says of him that "he makes 
 bold, strong, determined rushes when first 
 hooked, and a young angler with anything 
 like fine tackle will have his nerve and skill 
 well tested in landing a four-pounder. He 
 is a shy and timid fish, and almost as crafty 
 as an old carp, while of all fish he is, 
 perhaps, the most light and delicate in his 
 biting ; and the larger he is, the more 
 tenderly does he seem to take the bait." 
 Bream are also as sensitive to vibrations of 
 sound as their cousins the carp, and Mr. 
 Manley therefore advises all bream-anglers to 
 
 F
 
 66 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK. 
 
 wear list slippers or goloshes in their punts, 
 as no sound is more apt to scare away 
 bream than the noise of boots on the floor 
 of a boat or punt. Ordinary float-tackle, 
 such as is used for roach-fishing, will be found 
 equally serviceable for ordinary-sized bream ; 
 big bream are more usually taken on the 
 " leger." It is well also for a bream-angler 
 to arm himself with a stout apron and cloth, 
 for bream are covered, much like the tench, 
 with a thick slime, which would otherwise 
 ruin the angler's clothes irretrievably. The 
 necessity of a new suit of clothes for each 
 day's bream-fishing would be apt to warp the 
 enthusiasm of the most ardent fisher of carp- 
 bream.
 
 PERCH 
 
 F 2
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PERCH. 
 
 JF all British freshwater fishes the 
 perch is perhaps the most widely 
 distributed. In nearly all the ponds 
 and rivers of England and Ireland 
 he is to be found, and in some of the 
 waters in the South of Scotland. Further north 
 he becomes rare. It is hard to ascribe a reason 
 for the perch's dislike to Scotland ; it cannot be 
 the cold Climate, as perch are found in Scan- 
 dinavia and even in Lapland. 
 
 For two reasons the perch is worth cultiva- 
 tion. He affords excellent sport, as all Thames, 
 Kennet, and Waveney anglers will acknow- 
 ledge ; and what would riparian haunts be 
 without the edible charms of Perca fluviatilis ? 
 Other charms he has, too, for he is one of the 
 most beautiful fish in our islands. Frank 
 Buckland says of the perch that " No lady's
 
 70 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK : 
 
 dress was ever made so beautiful as that of a 
 perch's when he is in full season. His cuirass 
 of scales is formed of a lovely bronze, with 
 transverse bars of dark-green bronze, while 
 the whole is shaded with a lovely peacock 
 iridescence. His fins are coloured with a 
 lovely tinge of red, such as we may sometimes see 
 in the glass of very old church windows, or 
 occasionally in Salviati's beautiful glass. Artists 
 would do well to study the colouring of the 
 perch. They will not find such brilliancy of 
 colour or such a combination of tints in any 
 flower." Mr. Buckland might have quoted the 
 description of the serpent in Keats' " Lamia :"- 
 
 " She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue, 
 Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue ; 
 Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard, 
 Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr'd ; 
 And full of silver moons," 
 
 But this extraordinary brilliancy of colouring, 
 bestowed on such a northerner as the British 
 perch, is more or less evanescent. " Age can 
 wither " him, and an elderly perch is a very 
 dusky object in comparison with the " chromatic
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 71 
 
 beauty," as one writer puts it, of the rising 
 generation. 
 
 The perch has come down to us from ancient 
 days with a long pedigree of excellence. He 
 was well known to the Greeks, and Aristotle 
 wrote much about him under the name of irfpKrj. 
 In fact, his name of perch is derived from the 
 adjective WPKOS, which was used to describe the 
 dark shade of ripening olives, a colour which 
 we find reproduced in the " transverse bars " 
 that adorn Percafluviatilis. These dark bars are 
 sometimes the cause of a curious optical illusion ; 
 for, on looking down on a perch through clear 
 still water, he appears absolutely transparent. 
 The family of PercidcB, to which the perch 
 belongs, is a very large one, distributed over all 
 parts of the world, in salt water as well as in 
 fresh. Amongst his cousins the perch can claim 
 such ornaments to fish society as the stinging 
 weever or " sea dragon," the labrax or " sea 
 wolf," after whose name " in Latin or Greek 
 gradus," says Mr. Manley, " is found such a 
 string of epithets denoting his rapacity, voracity, 
 and fierceness that they make one's very blood
 
 72 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 run cold," the hideous " sky-gazer " of the 
 Mediterranean, and the Nile perch, which even 
 a crocodile is said to eschew. Of these 
 Acanthopteri, or spinous-finned fishes, very few 
 inhabit our waters, an immunity for which any 
 one who has personally encountered a stinging 
 weever or even handled a perch incautiously 
 will feel grateful. 
 
 The first dorsal fin of a perch is a weapon 
 both of offence and defence. When he is 
 placidly enjoying himself, after he has had a 
 satisfying meal of the small red worms which 
 his soul loves, and which are found in abun- 
 dance in the wet soil by Thames side, then 
 the perch sheathes his back fin. Like many 
 people of one's acquaintance, when he has 
 everything to his liking he can afford to be 
 good-humoured; but let something occur to 
 upset him (and a perch's temper has not got a 
 very firm equilibrium), and in a moment he 
 rushes at the offender, whatever he may be, with 
 all his spines erect and bristling, and, as a 
 French author aptly puts it, " il fait penser au 
 chat." As to these spines Mr. Manley quaintly
 
 AXD OF STILL IV A TERS. 73 
 
 remarks, " I hardly know which is the least easy 
 to handle with any substantial comfort, a perch, 
 a red-hot coal, or a lively hedgehog." Appro- 
 priately was one of the old Saxon gods 
 represented standing with naked feet on the 
 back fin of a perch, " as an emblem of patience 
 in adversity and constancy in trial." Pike 
 have been said to refrain from devouring perch 
 on account of this dorsal fin ; but this has been 
 pretty well disproved, and certainly the many 
 deaths from " sticklebackitis " amongst young 
 jack would seem to denote that they are often 
 rash enough to attempt to negotiate far pricklier 
 food than a perch. Drayton alludes to this idea 
 when he speaks of 
 
 " The perch with pricking fins, against the pike prepared." 
 
 A pike's intelligence, however, is quite sufficient 
 to tell him that a perch swallowed, as he always 
 is, head-foremost, would be a comparatively 
 innocuous morsel, for the threatening fin would 
 be closed down, like the ribs of a furled um- 
 brella, when passing down the gullet. Once 
 the perch is inside, the pike knows his gastric
 
 74 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 juices too well to have further qualms. Perhaps 
 it is the necessity of taking good aim when 
 proceeding to swallow a perch that makes the 
 pike fight shy of him in his hours of repletion, 
 for a perch swallowed sideways would certainly 
 give trouble. In many places both in England 
 and the south of Scotland small perch are con- 
 sidered the best taking bait for pike, and in 
 Slapton Lea a perch with his back fin cut off is 
 almost the only bait used for pike-fishing. 
 Some writers suggest that it is on account 
 of the unusually rough skin and closely-set 
 scales of the perch that that all-devouring 
 monster the pike is lenient towards him. 
 However, it is hardly necessary to find reason 
 for a fallacy. 
 
 Pike are often caught in Sweden in a curious 
 way, illustrative of their greed. Large perch 
 swallow the baited hooks on the night-lines, 
 and in their turn are swallowed by pike. In 
 this case, however, it is, of course, impossible 
 for the pike to swallow the perch head-foremost, 
 and, though he is not actually hooked, yet the 
 perch's spines set so fast in his throat and
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 75 
 
 mouth that the fisherman draws both fish in 
 together. Somewhat the same fate often over- 
 takes the perch, too, when his greed makes him 
 attempt to devour the formidable sticklebacks. 
 The sharp-set spines of the back and ventral 
 fins of the sticklebacks are driven into the 
 membrane of the mouth of the perch, and cause 
 " such fretting ulcerations as to lead to its 
 destruction," as Mr. Couch remarks. 
 
 The skin of the perch is remarkably thick ; 
 and Linnasus in his " Lachesis Lapponica," 
 gives the following account of the way by which 
 the Laplanders convert it into glue : 
 
 " The glue used by the Laplanders for joining the two 
 portions of different woods of which their bows are made 
 is prepared from the common perch in the following 
 manner : Some of the largest of this fish being flayed, 
 the skins are first dried, and afterwards soaked in a small 
 quantity of cold water, so that the scales can be rubbed 
 off. Four or five of these skins being wrapped up 
 together in a bladder or in a piece of birch bark, so that 
 no water can get at them, are set on the fire in a pot of 
 water to boil, a stone being laid over the pot to keep in 
 the heat. The skins thus prepared make a very strong 
 glue, insomuch that the articles joined with it will never 
 separate again. A bandage is tied round the bow while 
 making to hold the two parts more firmly together."
 
 76 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 Linnaeus described also a deformed variety of 
 perch, with the back greatly elevated and the 
 tail distorted, which he found at Fahlun, in 
 Sweden, and in other lakes in the north of 
 Europe. Specimens of these "deformed " perch 
 have also been found in Llyn Raithlyn, in 
 Merionethshire, and there is a drawing of one 
 of them in Daniel's " Rural Sports ;" but they 
 are looked upon as "accidents of nature" 
 rather than a true and distinct breed. Albino 
 perch, also, almost entirely white, have been 
 found in the waters of particular soils. 
 
 Perch prefer lakes and the deeper and less 
 rapid pools of rivers ; a very swift current is to 
 them an abomination ; and, if their lot is cast 
 in a rapid stream, they will invariably be found 
 near the bank or in backwaters. In the winter- 
 time, when floods occur, perch are driven in 
 vast numbers into any pool or eddy they can 
 find, and it is then that the largest " takes " are 
 made. Mr. Francis says that on these occasions 
 " they are pulled out not in braces, dozens, or 
 even scores, but often to the tune of hundreds. 
 I have seen and helped to catch ten dozen, and
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 77 
 
 over, out of one hole, and have heard of twice 
 ten dozen being taken." It is at starvation 
 times such as those that the perch merits his 
 name of " the greedy perch, bold biting fool," 
 as the Complimentary Ode to Izaak Walton has 
 it ; but at less rigorous seasons, and when he is 
 not over plentiful, there are few fish more in- 
 telligently wary than he. Indeed in waters that 
 are much fished perch attain an experience 
 of bait and fishing-tackle which would do credit 
 to many anglers, who often insult a perch's 
 intelligence by fishing for him with a monstrous 
 apparatus of hog's bristles, shots, and bone 
 bought at a tackle- maker's, under the fond delu- 
 sion that it is the "right sort" of paternoster. 
 As Mr. Francis rightly observes about such 
 abominations, "if he (the perch) condescends 
 to take your minnow at all, he will take it 
 probably without the hook." 
 
 There are several ways of fishing for perch, 
 but paternostering from a punt is the most 
 common and the most successful as to mere 
 numbers. The largest and best fish, however, 
 are more apt to take a spinning minnow ; and
 
 78 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 in lakes they are said to take a spoon better 
 than almost any other spinning bait. In this 
 matter of spoons they have their predilections ; 
 and it is said they prefer the triangular spinner 
 made of spoon-metal (commonly known as the 
 "otter") to the ordinary spoon. In some parts 
 of the country perch are fished for with a fly ; 
 and, as they are not particular about the fashion 
 of the fly, a showy one, with plenty of tinsel on 
 the body, is most to be commended. In Nor- 
 folk, the water-shrimp is a favourite bait. One 
 thing, however, that the angler should be careful 
 to remember is that the perch has a rather 
 tender mouth, and therefore needs delicate 
 handling. He should neither be struck at too 
 sharply nor played too roughly. 
 
 Ponds in which perch are bred and kept for 
 table should be carefully netted from time to 
 time ; perch breed so fast that if care is not 
 taken to keep their numbers within bounds, 
 they will soon overstock a pond. Mutual starva- 
 tion is the result, and the owner is surprised 
 to find that his perch are rapidly degenerating 
 and becoming very small. The remedy for this
 
 AND OF STILL WA TERS. 79 
 
 state of things is to keep down the numbers, 
 and to feed the survivors regularly ; under these 
 favourable circumstances the perch will grow 
 and fatten rapidly. Perch vary in weight con- 
 siderably according to the locality. On the 
 Thames a perch of 4 Ibs. or 4^ Ibs. is looked 
 upon as a monster and a rarity ; and even a 
 2-lb. fish is considered a very satisfactory 
 specimen. But at Slapton Lea one was taken 
 who weighed 6 Ibs., his portrait and a record 
 of his weight being figured in chalk on the wall 
 of the bar-parlour. Another of the same 
 weight was caught in the Birmingham Canal. 
 Montagu mentions a perch of 8 Ibs. he saw 
 taken in the Avon on a night-line which had 
 been set for pike, and another eight-pounder 
 was caught in Dagenham Breach. In the 
 Norfolk Broads perch are both numerous and 
 large. Mr. Davies says that " four-pounders 
 are frequently taken, and the Waveney produces 
 some very large ones. A 7-lb. perch was taken 
 some years ago out of the new cut from Reed- 
 ham to Maddiscoe, and others from five to six 
 pounds in weight have been taken in the Bure
 
 8o A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK ; 
 
 and on Ormesby Broad." Pennant speaks of a 
 perch, taken in the Serpentine, Hyde Park, 
 that weighed 9 Ibs. In Scandinavia and Lap- 
 land the perch attains a still larger size, and 
 Bloch speaks of the head of a perch preserved 
 in the church of Luelah, in Lapland, which 
 measured twelve inches from the point of the 
 nose to the end of the gill-cover. Mr. Frank 
 Buckland was not lucky enough to get hold of 
 any of these perchy monsters, for the largest 
 that came into his hands was one sent to him 
 by Dr. Norman from Norfolk in 1868; it 
 weighed 3 Ibs. 2 ozs. 
 
 The quantity of ova varies very much in 
 perch, but all authorities are agreed that it is very 
 large. In one perch, of half a pound weight, 
 280,000 eggs were found, whereas in the Norfolk 
 perch just mentioned Mr. Buckland found only 
 155,620, in spite of the greater size of the 
 fish. 
 
 The fact that perch have a most remarkable 
 capacity for living out of water for a consider- 
 able period, should add greatly to their value 
 as a marketable commodity. Thus, in some
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 81 
 
 parts of Germany perch are caught and carried 
 alive to market, sometimes a distance of forty 
 or fifty miles, and, if not sold, brought back to 
 their pond. 
 
 Few better fish come to table than a good 
 river-perch. Amongst the ancients he was 
 held in high favour. Ausonius sang his praises, 
 and thus addressed him : 
 
 "Nee te, delidas mensartun, Perca, silebo." 
 
 Galen prescribed perch as good for invalids, and 
 another author spoke rapturously of the fish's 
 " flower-like " odour. Walton, speaking of his 
 merits, quotes the proverb, " More wholesome 
 than a perch of Rhine." Mr. Frank Buckland 
 speaks of them as being used for "water- 
 souche," a dish beloved by most riparians, but 
 pins his own faith to perch cooked by the 
 fisherman as soon as caught, for which he gives 
 the following " excellent receipt :" 
 
 " Take the fish as caught, not drawn or otherwise 
 cleaned, procure some stiff clay, and with it give the fish 
 a thin coating about the sixteenth of an inch thick ; 
 failing the clay, lightly envelop it in several coatings of 
 paper newspaper will answer admirably ; thoroughly 
 
 G
 
 82 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK. 
 
 saturate the paper by holding it in hot water, having 
 previously lighted a fire of wood and sticks so as to produce 
 a quantity of hot fire-holding embers. Give the fish in 
 the case of clay twenty minutes therein ; if the fish are in 
 newspaper give them twenty minutes longer ; time must 
 be allowed according to size. Fish done in this way are 
 perfection." 
 
 No doubt they are ; and a hungry fisherman's 
 appetite will probably supply the best sauce for 
 this worthy fish.
 
 SMALL FRY 
 
 G 2
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SMALL FRY. 
 I. 
 
 ICHAEL DRAYTON hardly 
 showed his usual discrimination 
 when he treated small fry so 
 cavalierly in his lines : 
 
 "The dainty gudgeon, loche, the minnow, and the bleak, 
 Since they but little are, I liltle need to speak." 
 
 Only too many people have followed in his 
 footsteps, and of such we can but say with all 
 commiseration theirs is the loss. The initiated 
 wisely place very high the merits of a dish of 
 fat gudgeon, fried piping hot, and " asperged " 
 with lemon juice. Unfortunately for the general 
 public, gudgeon do not come much into the 
 market. Perhaps the conscious superiority of 
 having partaken of this "dish for kings" is one 
 of the reasons for the divine placidity of mind 
 of a Thames angler ; for, as old Father Izaak
 
 86 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK : 
 
 testifies, " I envy not him that eats better meat 
 than I do, nor him that is richer, or that wears 
 better clothes than I do ; I envy nobody but him, 
 and him only, that catches more fish than I do." 
 That gudgeon-fishing is an all-absorbing 
 pastime is proved by many stories, the best of 
 all being that told by Daniel, in his ''Rural 
 Sports," of an angling vicar, who was engaged 
 to be married to his bishop's daughter. To 
 raise his spirits, we suppose, upon " the fatal 
 morn " he went out gudgeon-fishing, and lingered 
 so long over his sport that, when he at last 
 arrived at the church, it was too late for the 
 ceremony, and the bride contemptuously de- 
 clined to marry a man who so evidently 
 preferred the quiet flow of a gudgeon stream to 
 the more stormy waters of matrimony, or, in 
 other words, " his basket to his bride." No 
 doubt the consciousness of twelve dozen fish in 
 his basket sustained him under such an ordeal. 
 Sir Isaac Newton was not proof against this one 
 " touch of nature," and Bacon, Cecil, Holinshed, 
 and Gay all helped to swell the noble army of 
 gudgeon-fishers.
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 87 
 
 The Greeks called the gudgeon KW/?IOS, from 
 which came the Latin gobius or gobio. Some 
 authorities, such as Linnaeus, Bloch, Donovan, 
 and Jenyns, consider him a true member of the 
 carp family, and therefore call him Cyprinus 
 Gobio, while Johnston, Willoughby, -Fleming, 
 Yarrell, and Couch differ from their learned 
 brethren, and, though allowing that the little 
 barbels at the gudgeon's mouth cause a resem- 
 blance to the mighty carp, they maintain that 
 the difference of the dorsal and anal fins being 
 short in the gudgeon, and, above all, in his not 
 possessing the spines in front of those fins, 
 which are a distinguishing mark of the true 
 Cyprinidcz, precludes the idea of a very close 
 relationship. By these authorities, therefore, 
 this lovely little fish is simply called Gobio 
 fluviatilis, on account of his preference for 
 running water. Alluding to this very spine- 
 lessness (which causes his non-resemblance 
 to the carp family) and the general slipperiness 
 of the gudgeon's little person, Ovid says of 
 him, 
 
 " Lubricus et spina nocuus non gobius ulla."
 
 88 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 Dr. Badham, in his " Fishing Tattle " relates the 
 story of the dish of gudgeon which Ptolemy 
 caused to be set before the parasite Archephon, 
 whom he had invited over from Attica to Egypt. 
 Ptolemy was utterly taken aback when his guest 
 refused the delicacy, and he muttered to his 
 confidant Alcanor that the guest must be either 
 a blind man or a lunatic. Alcanor hastened 
 to appease the royal wrath by attributing 
 the guest's abstinence to modesty. " He saw 
 it, sire, but deemed himself unworthy to 
 lay profane hands upon so divine a little 
 fish." 
 
 Galen gives the gudgeon a high place amongst 
 edible fish, not only for the sweetness and deli- 
 cacy of its flavour, but also for its digestibility. 
 John Williamson, "gent. temp. 1740," com- 
 mends the gudgeon " for a fish of an excellent 
 nourishment, easy of digestion, and increasing 
 good blood." Izaak Walton says " the gudgeon 
 is reputed a fish of excellent taste and to be very 
 wholesome." Dr. Brookes, in his " History of 
 Fishes," goes still further, and says that this fish 
 is " thought good for a consumption and by
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 89 
 
 many swallowed alive" Whether this belief 
 has scientific sanction is not added ; but it 
 is on record that Mdme. de Genlis, one day out 
 fishing with some companions, on being accused 
 by them of being a "fine Paris lady," sud- 
 denly seized a freshly-caught gudgeon, and 
 swallowed it alive, exclaiming, " This will show 
 whether I am a fine Paris lady ! " We can 
 only hope that her friends were sufficiently con- 
 vinced. 
 
 Gudgeon are pretty widely distributed over 
 Europe ; and in most of the rivers of England 
 and Ireland are found in abundance. In 
 Scotland it is not known, and only of recent 
 years has it been found in Cornwall or the 
 western portion of Devonshire. In France it is 
 immensely esteemed for the table, two francs 
 and upwards a pound being given for it in the 
 country towns. Mr. Manley says that Thames 
 fishermen can always get for gudgeon a half- 
 penny apiece at the waterside hotels on the 
 Upper Thames, where the experience of riparians 
 has taught them to appreciate the edible charms 
 of gobio. The best gudgeon for eating are
 
 90 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 certainly those of the Thames, which far surpass 
 in flavour those of the Trent and the two Avons, 
 where they are found in abundance. 
 
 Gudgeon like clear, moderately swift-flowing 
 rivers, with bottoms of gravel, and here and 
 there deep holes in which they congregate in the 
 winter for warmth. Mr. Frank Buckland, who 
 was an ardent admirer of gudgeon-fishing, says 
 that " favourite spots for them when in the biting 
 humour about Windsor, are the deep holes 
 dredged out of the bed of the Thames by the 
 dredging locally called ballast, barges." How- 
 ever, a gudgeon is a hardy little fish, and few 
 situations come amiss to him. He does well in 
 ponds, especially if a stream happens to run 
 through. Couch, writing some half-century ago, 
 specifies ponds near Penzance where throve 
 gudgeon remarkably well. 
 
 Gudgeon are marvellously prolific, as may 
 well be imagined when anglers sometimes take 
 twelve dozen in a day, and often take seven or 
 eight dozen. These little fish spawn three times 
 a year, beginning in April ; and French authori- 
 ties say they require a month to hatch out, an
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 91 
 
 opinion not altogether shared at this side of the 
 Channel. Unlike many other fish, amongst 
 whom polyandry seems to be the order of exist- 
 ence, the gudgeon is a true Mormon, and has at 
 least six wives, if not more. By the beginning 
 of August the fry are about an inch long. The 
 best months for gudgeon-fishing are August, 
 September, October, and even as late as 
 November. Owing to the different times of 
 spawning, the angler will probably find among 
 his take an extraordinary difference of size, some 
 fishes being quite large and others extremely 
 small. The Thames Angling Preservation 
 Society tells its members not to take, or rather 
 not to keep, gudgeon measuring more than five 
 inches from the eye to the end ottfre' tail ; but 
 it is more than doubtful whether any one ever 
 attends to this prohibition. Gudgeon have been 
 known to attain seven inches, and even perhaps 
 eight, but these gobios are monsters, and worthy 
 to be placed in glass cases. The ordinary size 
 for a gudgeon is between five and six inches, and 
 a Thames fisherman is hardly likely to throw 
 back into the water a gudgeon under five inches,
 
 92 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 which would make about the very best possible 
 bait for either perch or eels. 
 
 Though a gudgeon is good enough to be 
 proof against being spoiled by even an amateur 
 cook, opinions differ somewhat as to the 
 best ways of treating him. Frank Buckland 
 earnestly recommends : " When out gudgeon- 
 fishing on the Thames, be sure and take a 
 frying-pan, as gudgeons taken out of the water 
 and immediately fried are delicious. Clean, 
 wipe, and flour, then well fry in boiling fat, or 
 better, in oil, till they are crisp and of a light- 
 brown colour. Such a fish-dinner is always a 
 great feature in a picnic on a fine day." Mr. 
 Manley, who, though he abuses all other fresh- 
 water fish from a culinary point of view, is enthu- 
 siastic over fried gudgeon, says that " the chief 
 secret, as with the cooking of all coarse fresh- 
 water fish, is to allow the gudgeon, after being 
 cleaned, to become dry and almost hard by 
 exposure to sun and wind." In France gudgeon 
 are simply fried in butter after having been 
 well washed externally, though not cleaned 
 out. But, though opinions may differ as to
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 93 
 
 details, all are agreed that the gudgeon is fat 
 and well liking, " praepinguis, teres," as Auso- 
 nius remarks, and worthy to appear on the table 
 of the most epicurean of gourmets. 
 
 The loach is another member of the tribe of 
 small fry who is worthy of more notice than he 
 generally gets. He is a tiny little fish, rarely 
 attaining five inches in length, and he somewhat 
 resembles a small gudgeon, though his barred 
 tail and mottled sides make him richer in colour 
 and better looking. The loach is even more 
 slippery a customer than the gudgeon, on 
 account of his very small scales, which not only 
 offer no resistance to the touch, but are also 
 covered with a slimy secretion. He lives 
 almost entirely at the bottom of the stream, 
 where he finds the worms and aquatic insects 
 that form his food, and where he usually lies 
 concealed behind or beneath a stone waiting 
 for his prey. The loach never uses his eyes for 
 the purpose of seeking his prey; the barbs 
 encircling his mouth are possessed of nerves 
 far more developed and of higher sensibility 
 than those that provide his eyes with sight, and
 
 94 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 they help him to his prey far better than mere 
 sight could. The nerves of both the organ of 
 hearing and that of smell are of most acute 
 sensibility, and experiments have proved that a 
 loach will follow its food by the scent, so as to 
 discover it, even when hidden from sight or 
 touch. Loaches are nocturnal fish, which is 
 probably the reason why their sight is less 
 developed than their other senses ; as soon as 
 darkness comes on they become extremely 
 active, in contrast to their utter listlessness by 
 day. 
 
 However, in spite of this listlessness, they will 
 take a bait, and Izaak Walton, who speaks of 
 the loach as " a most dainty dish .... very 
 grateful both to the palate and stomach of sick 
 persons," recommends that he should be " fished 
 for with a very small worm, at the bottom, for 
 he very seldom or never rises above the gravel." 
 
 In some parts of Europe loach are immensely 
 esteemed for the table, and great trouble is 
 taken to transport them to market alive. In 
 connection with this, Couch mentions an un- 
 pleasant habit said to obtain in some parts of
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 95 
 
 England of swallowing loach alive ; but, as he 
 wisely adds, " When this sort of mistaken crav- 
 ing is indulged in, the devourer should at least 
 be cautioned to observe the advice of Ronde- 
 letius, in not mistaking the armed loach for the 
 smooth-cheeked species, and thereby become 
 liable to the penalty of suffering a laceration of 
 his throat, as the struggling victim may be 
 urging his passage into his stomach." 
 
 Linnaeus, in his " Fauna Suecica," records the 
 fact that Frederick I., King of Sweden, had 
 loach brought over from Germany, and natural- 
 ized in Sweden. Gesner, that drawer of the 
 long-bow in all matters piscatorial, for once was 
 right when he spoke highly of the loach's edible 
 qualities, and recommended him as a good dish 
 for invalids. It seems a pity that so excellent a 
 little fish, a worthy substitute for whitebait, 
 should not be cultivated for the table, to the 
 advantage of all fish-eaters. 
 
 From a sporting point of view, the loach, 
 unlike his relation the brave little gudgeon, has 
 but little to recommend him. The most 
 ordinary way in which his capture is effected is
 
 96 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 by small boys armed with dinner-forks tied to 
 the end of sticks, with which they spear poor 
 little " Beardie," while, like an ostrich, he has 
 hidden his head behind a stone. But if he 
 does not show sport himself, he is capable of 
 causing it to be shown by others, for loach are 
 one of the most deadly baits for lake trout that 
 can be found. And to such persons as wish to 
 try what delights loach-trolling can afford on an 
 Irish lough, on a fine summer or autumn even- 
 ing, we would recommend the use of the small 
 green loach, of about two and a half to three 
 inches long, as being of the kind and size most 
 preferred by Sal mo ferox. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Next to the gudgeon in the order of edible 
 merit comes the minnow. Though the smallest 
 member of the Cyprinidce, he is by no means to 
 be despised on that account. Izaak Walton, 
 speaking of the minnow, says that he may be
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 97 
 
 "for excellency of meat, compared to any fish 
 of greatest value and largest size." Mr. Yarrell 
 says, " they make an excellent fry when a 
 sufficient quantity can be obtained," which is a 
 wise proviso as regards so diminutive a little 
 person as Leuciscus phoxinus. By this name he 
 is spoken of by Cuvier, Fleming, and Yarrell ; 
 Linnaeus and Jenyns call him Cyprinus 
 phoxinus ; and Johnston varies the cognomen 
 still further in Phoxinus lavis, the latter word 
 being derived from the Greek <oos, a term 
 which the minnow shares with Thersites, who 
 in the " Iliad " has his head alluded to thereby. 
 Rondeletius spoke of the minnow as Varius ; 
 and Aristotle, who made many observations on 
 minnows and their habits, always alludes to this 
 little fish as Phoxinus, owing to its shape, which 
 he considered was " formed like a top," though 
 why a minnow should be thought more like a 
 top in shape than other fishes the salmon, for 
 instance, whose shape he reproduces in minia- 
 ture it would be hard to say. 
 
 Top-shaped or not, the minnow is one of 
 the greatest dandies the British rivers possess, 
 
 H
 
 98 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 especially when he goes courting in the summer 
 time. His back is dark green, ornamented 
 with bars of a yet darker shade, a yellow line 
 adorns his sides from his gill-covers to his tail ; 
 his cheeks and fins are yellow ; underneath he 
 is a brilliant pink during the summer, and at 
 other times a faint yellow. As all this variety 
 of colour is united on a little body barely three 
 inches long, it is easy to imagine what an 
 ornamental little fish the Leuriscus phoxinus 
 is. 
 
 The minnow is very different from the 
 gudgeon in his choice of water, for while the 
 gudgeon has an unpleasant liking for sewer 
 water, the minnow is most particular that the 
 water he lives in should be clear and rapid. 
 The water of the Itchen, which runs past 
 Winchester, and is largely mixed with chalk, is 
 particularly favourable to minnows ; and the 
 Itchen minnows are said to be unusually large 
 and handsome. It was perhaps owing to their 
 being so that William of Wykeham, the founder 
 of Winchester College, was so very partial to 
 them, and had them constantly served at his
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 99 
 
 table. At a banquet which he gave to the King 
 and Queen on the i6th of September, 1394, 
 many kinds of fish were served, and amongst 
 them no less than seven gallons of minnows, 
 which cost eleven shillings and eightpence. At 
 this banquet two hundred and ten guests were 
 present, and the dinner cost 3857. of our present 
 money. People in those days were more 
 enlightened as to the merits of fresh-water fish 
 than they are now, when a fishmonger would 
 open his eyes with astonishment, not unmingled 
 with contempt, if any daring mortal should 
 express a wish for a dish of gudgeon or 
 minnows. 
 
 As a rule, minnows are very clean feeders, 
 living chiefly on aquatic vegetables, and also 
 on tiny insects and worms or other soft bodies. 
 Some authorities say they are very destructive 
 to the spawn of salmon and of trout ; but this 
 statement is open to doubt. Rather is it the 
 other way ; for, though the minnow has many 
 enemies, it is a question whether any of them 
 devour as many minnows as do the salmon and 
 trout. From the time he first makes his 
 
 H 2
 
 ioo A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK : 
 
 appearance the minnow's life is a hand-to-hand 
 struggle for existence. All fish are ready to eat 
 him, and even his eggs become the prey of 
 many enemies, especially eels, ducks, and 
 shore-rats, who watch the minnows during 
 the spawning season, and, if possible, devour 
 all the eggs. If minnows were not so remarkably 
 prolific, they would have become extinct long 
 ago ; but, as Aristotle remarked, minnows begin 
 to breed almost as soon as they come into 
 existence. The spawning season, which is in 
 the middle of summer, is a very short one, and 
 the great increase of minnows would therefore 
 seem at first a mystery ; but the same observer, 
 Aristotle, discovered that "the younger fishes 
 produce a progeny sufficient to provide a second 
 growth before the expiration of the same 
 season." 
 
 A writer in " Loudon's Magazine of Natural 
 History " in May, 1832, described his own obser- 
 vations on the spawning of minnows, which were 
 most curious, as follows : 
 
 " I was astonished to find how quickly the eggs were 
 hatched. I discovered a large shoal spawning on the i ith
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 101 
 
 of May ; on the 1 2th they were diminished to one-tenth 1 
 of the number, and on the I4th there was not one left. 
 As I had by no means satisfied myself on the subject, I 
 felt disappointed that they had so soon finished their opera- 
 tions, and I took up a handful of the gravel where they 
 had been spawning, and examined it with the microscope 
 to see whether I could discover any eggs and how they 
 were going on, when, to my great surprise, I found them 
 hatching, and some of them already excluded from the 
 egg. One of them which I took on the point of a knife 
 swam briskly away, and another was the means of 
 pointing out an enemy to me that I had never before 
 suspected, and that I had always believed to be the prey 
 and not the devourer of fish. The poor minnow had 
 somehow got fast to the point of the knife, and in its 
 stru ggles to free itself it attracted the attention of a creeper 
 (the larva, I believe of the fly called the green drake by 
 anglers), which pounced upon it as fiercely as the water 
 staphylinus does upon the luckless tadpole ; but, fortu- 
 nately for the minnow, either the glittering of the knife- 
 blade or the motion of my hand scared it away again with- 
 out its prey. The young minnows in this state were quite 
 transparent, except the eyes, which appeared dispropor- 
 tionately large ; and they seemed to be perfectly aware 
 that they owed their safety to concealment, as those that 
 I saw immediately buried themselves in the gravel when 
 they were set at liberty." 
 
 During the spawning season the heads of the 
 minnows are covered with small white osseous 
 knobs, which appear immediately before, and
 
 102 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 vanish immediately after, the fish have spawned. 
 These are generally supposed to be meant as a 
 protection to the head of the fish during 
 spawning, when they jam their heads in between 
 two pebbles, while their tails stand up almost 
 perpendicularly. In the Report of the Imperial 
 Society of Acclimatization in 1867 there is a 
 most interesting paper by M. Saubadon on the 
 minnow, which he bred in great quantities as 
 food for trout and young salmon. Besides 
 breeding them artificially, M. Saubadon used 
 also to search the spawning-beds of the minnows 
 (which he remarked were always on the same 
 piece of ground) and collect the eggs, which are 
 very small, and are to be found adhering one to 
 the other, in the interstices of the stones. 
 Sometimes he found masses of eggs two inches 
 in width and eight inches in length, and on one 
 occasion he collected more than six pounds' 
 weight of minnows' eggs. De minimis non atrat 
 lex, so we suppose there is no law against 
 robbing the nest of a minnow. 
 
 Amongst minnows the average of the sexes is 
 two males to one female. Besides feeding on
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 103 
 
 worms and aquatic plants, minnows have also 
 a habit of cannibalism, and devour the dead 
 bodies of their own kind. In a letter to his 
 friend, the Rev. Mr. Hurdis, dated from Weston, 
 in February, 1793, Cowper gives an interesting 
 account of this intelligent habit of the minnows 
 of disposing of their dead relations : 
 
 " Mrs. Umvin and I crossing a brook saw, from the 
 footbridge, somewhat at the bottom of the water which 
 had the appearance of a flower. Observing it attentively, 
 we found that it consisted of a circular assemblage of 
 minnows ; their heads all met in the centre, and their 
 tails diverging at equal distances, and being elevated 
 above their heads, gave them the appearance of a flower 
 half blown. One was longer than the rest ; and as often 
 as a straggler came in sight, he quitted his place to pursue 
 him, and, having driven him away, he returned to it again, 
 no other minnow offering to take it in his absence. This 
 we saw him do several times. The object that had at- 
 tracted them all was a dead minnow, which they seemed 
 to be devouring." 
 
 A minnow, though a very shy and timid fish, 
 as he well may be when, like Ishmael, he finds 
 every one's hand (or jaws) against him, will 
 readily take a bait. Mr. Manley recommends 
 that he should be fished for in about two or three 
 feet of water, with " a scrap of worm or gentle
 
 104 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK : 
 
 on a very small hook, or even without a hook, 
 and touching the bottom," for a minnow when 
 he seizes a bait will hold it so fast with his jaws 
 that he may be thus lifted out of the water, hook 
 or no hook. It is only very youthful anglers, 
 however, as a rule, who go minnow-fishing with 
 a rod and line : the more usual manner of cap- 
 ture is a " minnow-net," which Frank Buckland 
 took great pains to describe : 
 
 ' ' A fine-meshed net is fastened nearly flat to an iron 
 hoop about two feet in diameter ; in the middle is fas- 
 tened a perforated bullet and a piece of red cloth ; three 
 strings run off from the ring and join together about two 
 feet away from the hoop ; a longer line is attached to this 
 and also to a pole, say eight feet long. The net is dropped 
 into the river, the minnows are attracted by the red cloth, 
 and the net is raised quickly by means of the pole." 
 
 Mr. Buckland forgot to add a necessary piece 
 of advice that the net should be drawn up at 
 intervals of a quarter of a minute or so, so as 
 not to give such active little fish as the minnows 
 time to dash away after satisfying their curiosity 
 anent the red cloth. The natural inquisitiveness 
 of a minnow often leads to his ruin, as he finds 
 when he is tempted to enter one of the glass
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS 105 
 
 bottles often used as traps to capture him. 
 These traps are large glass jars with perforated 
 metal tops, and the bottom made like the mouth 
 of a lobster-pot. 
 
 Minnows are most interesting little fish to 
 have in a fresh-water aquarium, and it is quite 
 surprising how tame they will become, even to 
 taking food from the hand of their keeper and 
 attending on all his movements. 
 
 There are several ways of cooking these tiny 
 Cyprinida. The most ordinary method, and 
 perhaps the best, is to treat them like whitebait, 
 " for which," says Mr. Manley from experience, 
 "they are an excellent substitute," and it is thus 
 enfriture that they are usually eaten in France. 
 Some connoisseurs pickle them, and pronounce 
 them a most savoury breakfast dish ; while 
 Father Izaak quaintly recommends that " their 
 heads and tails being cut off, and their guts 
 taken out, and not washt after, they prove excel- 
 lent for that use, that is, being fryed with yolks 
 of eggs, the flowers of cowslips, and of primroses, 
 and a little Tansie ; thus used they make a 
 dainty dish of meat."
 
 FISH-PONDS 

 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 FISH-PONDS. 
 I. 
 
 ISH-PONDS, as well as their usual 
 inhabitants, the so-called "coarse 
 fish," take high rank among the 
 undeveloped possibilities of this 
 country. By fish-ponds, we do not 
 mean a tank at the end of the garden, in which 
 a few plethoric members of the finny tribes eke 
 out a somnolent existence; but ponds established 
 on a sound system, with a business eye directed 
 to the profits they will surely return to their 
 proprietor. 
 
 We who have the good fortune (or otherwise) 
 of living in these palmy days of the nineteenth 
 century, surrounded by scientific developments 
 of all kinds, are rather inclined to look back 
 with scorn at the amount of knowledge possessed
 
 I io A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 by the poor creatures who lived in what we are 
 pleased to call the " Dark Ages." But there 
 are just a few things in which it must be owned 
 these poor creatures can yet teach us a good 
 deal, and one of those things is a fish-pond. In 
 the times when, on the one hand, sea-fish were, 
 practically speaking, unattainable, and on the 
 other, fish of some kind were an absolute ne- 
 cessity for the fast-days every one observed, it 
 behoved many people to study the question of 
 the supply of fresh-water fish. 
 
 The establishment of fish-stews and ponds 
 was the natural result of the existing order of 
 things. No abbey or nunnery was without its 
 stews in which the fish were kept and fattened 
 for the table ; and most of the great country- 
 houses were equally well supplied. In many 
 places where these ancient ponds and stews still 
 exist they might be brought into working order 
 again with very little trouble ; and it is almost 
 superfluous to speak of the hundreds of narrow 
 valleys and glens, now barren and unused, 
 which would make ideal sites for fish-ponds. 
 No one who has ever been to Rome can forget
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. in 
 
 the elaborate fish-stew in the Palace of the 
 Caesars on the Palatine, from which the water 
 could be drawn off at will by means of sluices. 
 The Romans were too fond of the pleasures of 
 the table to overlook the gastronomical merits 
 of carefully fattened fish. 
 
 But without going back so far in the history 
 of fish-ponds, we find almost the greatest au- 
 thority on fish-culture in the person of the good 
 bishop Dubravius, of Olmiitz, in Moravia, who 
 lived in the sixteenth century. Of this dignitary 
 the late Frank Buckland said that : " Bishop 
 or no bishop, he knew more about fish-ponds 
 than we do at the present day." He published 
 a Latin book in black-letter, entitled " Dubravius 
 de Piscinis," which is now extremely rare, and 
 of which there is a copy in the Bodleian Library 
 at Oxford. The title-page runs thus : " Jani 
 Dubravii, qui postea Olomucensis Episcopus 
 creatus est, de Piscinis et Piscibus, qui in eis 
 aluntur, naturis libri quinque, vi doctissimi, ita 
 ad rem familiarem augendam utilissimi, ad 
 illustrem virum Antonium Fuggerum. 1559." 
 
 Into the subject of fish-ponds the Bishop goes
 
 112 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 with great detail, and his advice is as useful in 
 the nineteenth century as it was in the sixteenth. 
 The chief thing he lays stress upon is that, as 
 he says, " a crop of fish should alternate with a 
 crop of vegetables," or, in other words, that 
 every pond in turn should be run dry, and 
 planted with a crop of some kind of grain before 
 it is again filled and re-stocked. From this 
 point of view, he looks with favour on the 
 " three-pond " system : 
 
 " Suppose three ponds to be in existence, A, B, and C. 
 Let the water be run off from pond A completely, and as 
 it empties catch the fish and place them in pond B. 
 Having let A run completely dry, plant the mud with 
 oats, barley, cabbages, or rye-grass. The crops having 
 been in due time reaped, refill it in the winter, and stock 
 it with fry. Then dry and plant B. At the same time 
 dispose of all the larger marketable fish, and put the half 
 and three-parts grown fish into pond C, which now, for 
 the first time, is taken into the regular round of cultiva- 
 tion. Thus with three ponds worked upon this system, 
 the proprietor will always have a crop of vegetables 
 growing in one pond, yearling fry in another pond, and 
 breeders, with the fish fattening for the market, in the 
 third." 
 
 No system that has ever been invented is 
 better than this. Those who adopt it avoid
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 113 
 
 one of the greatest difficulties as well as one of 
 the heaviest expenses involved by the clearing 
 out, or, as it is technically called, " mudding," 
 of ponds, and the necessary turning up of the 
 mud soil by the plough ensures the fattening of 
 the fish when they are placed in it the following 
 year. No good breeding can be carried on in 
 ponds unless they are drained dry from time to 
 time ; and authorities are agreed that the 
 oftener this draining is done the better for the 
 fish. If ponds are left to themselves and never 
 drained out, not only will the fish not thrive in 
 them, but they will almost cease to breed, no 
 matter how much attention they receive. But, 
 if the pond is run dry and left in that state, 
 even without planting of any kind, the fish 
 when again turned in will thrive marvellously. 
 However, by the simple device of planting, not 
 only is the waste ground of the pond utilized, 
 but the crops grown therein are found to be 
 unusually heavy, especially when oats are sown, 
 which flourish in the mud soil. Barley also 
 grows well in the mud, and is particularly good 
 for the fish that come after it when the pond is 
 
 i
 
 H4 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 refilled. Another excellent reason for drying, 
 ploughing, and planting ponds from time to 
 time is that it is one of the few efficacious ways 
 of getting rid of that aquatic plague, the Ameri- 
 can weed, which is one of the greatest nuisances 
 offish-ponds in this country as well as of the 
 rivers. As a rule, the process of drying and 
 ploughing will be found a sufficiently drastic 
 remedy for this pest ; but if it is in any very 
 great quantity, it is well to make assurance 
 doubly sure by a dose of common salt also. 
 
 Fishponds should not be made too deep. 
 With the exception of a few deep holes, to 
 which the fish like to retire at times, the best 
 fish-ponds are generally shallow. In compara- 
 tively shallow ponds fish find a greater quantity 
 of the insects and larvae, on which they love to 
 feed, than they do in deep waters, and many 
 of the aquatic plants which they prefer such 
 as those of the Ranunculus and Potamegeton 
 tribes do better in water that is not too deep. 
 Rushes and weeds should also be encouraged 
 in fish-ponds, as the fish like them, not only 
 for shelter, but chiefly for depositing their eggs
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 115 
 
 thereupon in spawning-time. Some authorities 
 recommend that osiers should be planted round 
 the ponds ; but on this question, and also on 
 another closely allied to it namely, whether 
 trees should be allowed on the margin of fish- 
 pondsthere are considerable differences of 
 opinion. 
 
 Izaak Walton, quoting from Dr. Lebault's 
 " Maison Rustique," says that " if many trees be 
 growing about your pond, the leaves thereof 
 falling into the water make it nauseous to the 
 fish, and the fish to be so to the eater of it." 
 Others, on the contrary, recommend that trees 
 should be encouraged on account of the insects 
 that abound on their leaves and branches, 
 caterpillars and suchlike being dainty morsels 
 to the palates of fish. The late Frank Buckland 
 did not give an opinion on the knotty point of 
 trees or no trees, but contented himself by 
 recommending that any dead leaves likely to 
 fall, or to be blown, into the pond should be 
 collected and burnt, as they are apt to make 
 too much mud in the water. As regards the 
 feeding of fish, he recommends particularly 
 
 I 2
 
 ii6 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK : 
 
 "that a dead cat or rabbit, unskinned, should 
 be hung up in a tree over the pond. The 
 gentles resulting from the blow-flies will fall 
 into the pond and afford excellent food for the 
 fish. Care should also be taken to collect after 
 a shower at night, by the aid of a lantern, the 
 large lobworms that are then plentiful." 
 
 One very curious fact recorded by Mr. 
 Buckland is that the presence of ducks on a 
 pond is an immense advantage to the fish, 
 which he explains by the fact that the habit 
 which ducks have of " rootling " with their bills 
 in the mud enables the fish to get at a quantity 
 of minute insects, while the loosening of the 
 mud " gives facilities to the water creatures to 
 breed." So distinct is the improvement of the 
 fish under these circumstances that Mr. Port, 
 who had charge of the experimental ponds at 
 Reculver, told Mr. Buckland that when 
 handling eels even in the dark he could tell 
 from their size whether they came from a 
 stream of which ducks and geese had the run. 
 Of course both ducks and geese must be kept 
 away from ponds when the fish are spawning,
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 117 
 
 as they will, if allowed, devour immense 
 quantities of fish-eggs. In a book published in 
 1713, called "A Discourse of Fish and Fish- 
 ponds," by the Honourable Roger North, it is 
 advised that cattle should be allowed to come and 
 drink and stand in fish-ponds, " as it conduces 
 much to the thrift of the cattle as well as the 
 feed of the fish," the disturbance of the mud, 
 and the consequent increase of fish food, being 
 evidently the object in view. 
 
 The time of draining is another question 
 much discussed. In the Limousin, the carp- 
 breeding ponds are drained in turn every three 
 years, in the month of October. In Germany, 
 also, ponds are drained every third year. In 
 some parts of Austria the fish-ponds are drained 
 every two years. Mr. North says, "you may 
 let your ponds stand full two or three years, 
 not longer, unless you delight to see starved, 
 lean fish. The oftener the ponds are laid dry 
 the better the feed of fish shall be." Captain 
 Milton P. Peirce, who has made fish-ponds, and 
 everything appertaining to them, the object of 
 his great study, emphatically declares that
 
 ii8 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 " carp-ponds should be drained every spring as 
 early as the weather will permit ... if the 
 ponds are not drained early in the season, the 
 growth of aquatic vegetation will be retarded. 
 . . . The ponds should again be drained in 
 October for the purpose of assorting the carp, 
 removing the young from the stock-ponds to the 
 nursery- ponds, selecting both young and mature 
 fish for marketing purposes, and also to destroy 
 all enemies or other fish found in the ponds, 
 which should be done as well as at the spring 
 draining. Neither the ponds nor the fish should 
 be disturbed at any other season of the year." 
 Captain Peirce does not advocate the planting 
 system of Dubravius, though he also re- 
 commends the use of three ponds, which he 
 utilizes all at the same time for fish. In the 
 " hatching-pond " he places only the finest adult 
 specimens, in the " nursery " the young ones of 
 both sexes indiscriminately ; for, as Izaak 
 Walton says, " in a nurse-pond, or feeding-pond 
 in which they will not breed, then no care is to 
 be taken, whether there be most male or female 
 carps," and in the " stock-pond " the fish that
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 119 
 
 are ready for the market. Of the " ordering of 
 fish-ponds," as " The Complete Angler " would 
 say, and their construction we have more to 
 add. 
 
 ii. 
 
 NOT only should fish-ponds not be too deep, 
 but, if possible (that is to say, if they are being 
 made artificially), they should not be too large. 
 Large fish-ponds have many disadvantages. The 
 uncovering of large quantities of fish when a 
 pond is being drained is highly undesirable, 
 and is often attended with loss ; also, if the 
 surface of water is too large, unless it is un- 
 usually well sheltered, the wind is apt to raise 
 waves, which wash over the banks, and other- 
 wise disturb the fish. Pond-fish are generally 
 placid creatures, to whom rough waters are no 
 delight ; and it will be found, as a rule, that fish 
 in well-sheltered ponds do better than those in 
 ponds of exposed situations.
 
 120 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 The question of whether a stream should be 
 allowed to flow direct through fish-ponds is one 
 which has never been satisfactorily settled, some 
 pisciculturists being in favour of a stream, on 
 the grounds that it freshens the pond and brings 
 additional food to the fish, others thinking that 
 it only disturbs them, besides being open 
 to grave objections at flood-times. Captain 
 Salvin, a friend of the late Frank Buckland, gave 
 him a most interesting account of a set of fish- 
 ponds made during the reign of Queen Anne, 
 by Captain Salvin's great-grandfather. These 
 three ponds are fed by a stream " which is not 
 allowed to run through them, but is let in by 
 sluices at pleasure. The stream is conveyed by 
 an artificial watercourse outside, which is clearly 
 a wise precaution against their filling up with 
 sediment during floods, thus preventing an awful 
 amount of trouble and expense hereafter." 
 These ponds of Captain Salvin's are remarkable 
 for having been almost if not the first to possess 
 what is now termed a " collector," which he 
 thus describes : 
 
 " The deepest pait of the little pond (No. i, the fatten-
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 121 
 
 ing or stew-pond) is at the sluice, where it is emptied into 
 No. 2, near which is a strong, square, wooden box, gay 
 four feet deep by five square, and this is sunk flush with 
 the bottom of the pond, having two posts let in on each 
 side at the middle of each end of the box. To these posts 
 are fixed the ordinary gear of a draw-well, the chain being, 
 I think, divided to hook upon rings on ihe sides of an 
 inner box, which has holes at the bottom. When the fish 
 are required the sluice is opened, and the fish of course 
 retire into the deepest water, which is the inner box. The 
 box is then wound up, fish and all ; this is easily done, 
 since the water runs out through the holes in the bottom." 
 
 This plan of collectors is found to be almost 
 a necessity in fish-ponds ; but we incline to think 
 it is best to make the outer collector of masonry 
 or concrete, instead of wood like the inner box, 
 in which the fish are " wound up." In the 
 Limousin, where the carp-breeding, which is 
 most extensive, is carried on in very large natural 
 lakes or ponds, without any collector, one of the 
 chief outlays of money is for the numbers of 
 men required to catch the fish in the mud, an 
 expense which is minimized by the presence of a 
 collector. Besides their usefulness at the drain- 
 ing-time, the collectors are much liked by the 
 fish as " hides." All ponds, as we have already
 
 122 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK.- 
 
 said, require some deep holes into which the fish 
 like to retire for either meditation or warmth, 
 and collectors serve this purpose admirably. 
 
 In the edition of 1760 of " The Complete 
 Angler" there is a curious quotation from 
 Bowlker, who was a great authority on fish- 
 ponds, in which he recommends : 
 
 " When you intend to stock a pool with carp or tench, 
 make a close ethering hedge across the head of the pool 
 about a yard distance of the dam, and about three foot 
 above the water, which is the best refuge for them I know 
 of, and the only method to preserve pool-fish ; because, 
 if any one attempts to rob the pool, muddies the water, 
 or disturbs it with nets, most of the fish, if not all, imme- 
 diately fly between the hedge and the dam, to preserve 
 themselves ; and in all pools where there are such shelters 
 and shades the fish delight to swim backwards and for- 
 wards, through and round the same, rubbing and sporting 
 themselves therewith. This hedge ought to be made 
 chiefly of orls, and not too close, the boughs long, and 
 straggling towards the dam, by which means you may feed 
 and fatten them as you please." 
 
 This hedge, in fact, served as a sort of col- 
 lector for the fish, and in the absence of any 
 better kind must have been very useful. 
 
 Another thing which will be found a great 
 advantage in the adult pond is a fattening tank,
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 123 
 
 which can be conveniently placed in one corner. 
 In it should be kept a small number of fish 
 ready for the table or for sale ; being in the 
 fattening tank, they are caught without trouble, 
 and no disturbance is caused to the other fish 
 in the pond itself. As Mr. Buckland said truly, 
 "It must be remembered that the more you 
 feed your fish in ponds the quicker they will 
 grow, and the larger they will become," and no 
 pond of fish will really be turned to the most 
 advantage unless artificial feeding is resorted to. 
 One curious receipt used by the monks 
 of old for fattening carp in ponds runs as 
 follows : 
 
 " Barley meal, half a gallon ; chalk, in powder, \\ Ibs. 
 (very clean) ; clay, a sufficient quantity to make a stiff 
 paste. Place this in the stew or pond, in a net (of not 
 too small meshes), suspended about a foot from the 
 bottom. When all is sucked away but the clay, put 
 fresh in the net or nets." 
 
 How the fish are to abstract the barley and 
 chalk out of the paste and leave the clay, is not 
 explained. Dr. Lebault, according to Father 
 Izaak, recommended " that you often feed your
 
 124 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK : 
 
 fish by throwing in to them chippings of bread, 
 curds, grains, or the entrails of chickens, or of 
 any fowl or beast that you kill to feed your- 
 selves ; for these afford fish a great relief." 
 Also " that clods of grass thrown into any pond 
 feed any carps in summer ; and that garden- 
 earth and parsley thrown into a pond recovers 
 and refreshes the sick fish." Bowlker advises 
 " bullock's brains and lob-worms chopped to- 
 gether, and thrown into the pool in large 
 quantities about two hours before sunset, 
 summer and winter. . . . Wheaten bread is the 
 best food for them, though barley or oaten 
 bread is very good." 
 
 Herr Fruwirth, the Austrian pisciculturist, 
 has adopted a most ingenious plan for the pro- 
 duction of food for his fish-ponds. He has a 
 number of small ponds or ditches with stagnant 
 water and aquatic plants, that are used as nur- 
 series to propagate the larvae of insects, small 
 crustaceans, and other low forms of animal life 
 on which fish naturally feed. From time to 
 time some of the water swarming with these 
 creatures is admitted to adjoining ponds of pure
 
 AXD OF STILL WATERS. 125 
 
 water in which the fish live, who no doubt give 
 the new arrivals a warm welcome. One of the 
 greatest difficulties of coarse-fish breeding is 
 that of feeding the young fry. Mr. R. B. Mar- 
 ston explains this difficulty in a very simple 
 manner. 
 
 "The umbilical sac," he says, "on the contents of 
 which the trout alevin exists for six weeks, lasts the 
 alevin of the coarse fish but a day or two, and unless the 
 young fish are fed they will die, hence the difficulty of 
 rearing them in confinement. Dr. Kelson, of Oxford, 
 last year made the valuable discovery that the animal- 
 culse bred in water containing decayed vegetable matter 
 (like that in which cut flowers have been kept some time) 
 are eagerly devoured by the young fry. I think it is 
 difficult to overrate the value of this discovery to the 
 breeder of coarse fish." 
 
 But it should be borne in mind that Herr 
 Fruwirth's system has the great merit of sim- 
 plifying fry-feeding by supplying natural food in 
 large quantities. 
 
 In many ways the artificial cultivation of 
 salmon and trout is far easier than that of coarse 
 fish. Not only is the feeding of the fry of the 
 Salmonidte in its early stages of existence better
 
 126 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 provided for by Dame Nature, but the difference 
 in the eggs almost precludes the possibility of 
 their being treated in the same way. "The 
 eggs of coarse fish," says Mr. Marston, "are 
 adhesive, making their manipulation extremely 
 difficult ; so much so, that while ninety-five 
 per cent, of salmon and trout eggs can be 
 hatched out, those who have attempted to treat 
 coarse-fish eggs in the same way have rarely 
 succeeded in rearing even five per cent. The 
 eggs of the coarse fish hatch out in a very short 
 time, a week or ten days being the average 
 time required." 
 
 The almost impossible transportation of the 
 adhesive strings of eggs has, therefore, been 
 another of the great difficulties in coarse-fish 
 breeding ; but several intelligent people have 
 successfully combated this difficulty and inven- 
 tion has once more been brought forth by 
 necessity. One very ingenious plan (we forget 
 for the moment the name of its author) is to 
 make a square box like a collector, and to line 
 it throughout with fir-branches. Into this box 
 the fish are introduced when about to spawn,
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 127 
 
 and the eggs adhere to the fir branches. After 
 spawning the fish are removed, and the box can 
 be carried away to any stream or pond where 
 stocking is required. In all fish-ponds a few 
 breeding-hurdles are very necessary. They 
 consist simply of hurdles interwined with 
 branches of fir or other trees, and sunk in the 
 water in a quiet spot. The fish cast their 
 spawn on the hurdles, which can then be lifted 
 out and transferred elsewhere. Mr. Buckland 
 recommended that these hurdles " should be 
 placed on the top of the water, and fixed there 
 by posts ;" but perhaps the sunken hurdle is a 
 better plan. 
 
 The quantity of fish that water will carry 
 remains a moot point amongst pisciculturists. 
 Mr. Roger North, nearly two hundred years 
 ago, gave his opinion that of fry six or eight 
 inches long " you may put a hundred into four 
 rods square of water, or near that proportion ; 
 these then can be fed up like chickens, and in 
 time turn to great profit ; because, considering 
 a pond will, though but four acres, feed up 
 1 600 carp in two, and perhaps one year, from
 
 128 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 
 
 ten to eighteen inches, fit for your table, present, 
 or sale. . . ." Captain Milton Peirce says that 
 " nursery-ponds, if in proper condition and con- 
 taining a good growth of aquatic plants, will 
 support one thousand to fifteen hundred year- 
 ling carp per acre area of water. Stock-ponds, 
 in like condition, will support five hundred two- 
 year-old carp per acre. Under no ordinary 
 circumstances should larger stock be permitted. 
 Over-stocking carp-ponds would produce the 
 same result as over-stocking pastures with 
 cattle." It is far better to under-stock a pond 
 than to over-stock it, as in the latter case, the 
 fish dwindle in size, and in process of time the 
 breed utterly degenerates. 
 
 Under good conditions the increase of fish is 
 something enormous, for the experience of Herr 
 Max von dem Borne, who in 1885 got more 
 than eighty thousand fine young fry from five 
 hundred carp (spawners and milters), is by no 
 means uncommon. But in all fish-ponds, large 
 or small, only one kind of fish should be allowed 
 at a time ; if many varieties of fish are mixed 
 in the narrow limits of a pond, they not only
 
 AND OF STILL WATERS. 129 
 
 come to but little good, but they devour each 
 other, and thereby encroach on the privileges of 
 their proprietor. 
 
 Fish-ponds such as we have attempted to 
 describe offer three rewards good monetary 
 interest, an absorbing occupation, and an 
 immense increase in the supply of cheap and 
 wholesome food for the nation.
 
 BOOKS ON ANGLING. 
 
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