File:A history of the fishes of the British Islands (1862) (14796535203).jpg

Identifier: historyoffisheso04couch (find matches)
Title: A history of the fishes of the British Islands
Year: 1862 (1860s)
Authors: Couch, Jonathan, 1789-1870 Lydon, A. F
Subjects: Fishes
Publisher: London, Groombridge and Sons
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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body; and in the genial warmth of summer,when these fishes assemble in considerable troops, they delightto stem the course of the more rapid portion of the river theyfrequent, and more especially when night has set in they becomelively, with an evident disjDlay of a love of sport. But it isotherwise when cold weather advances; on the occurrence ofwhich they retire into the deeper and stiller portion of thestream, where the high banks afford them shelter; and there,in some secret pool, instead of being sly and watchful, theybecome so dull and stupid as to show no sensibility of danger,even to such a degree as to suffer themselves to be caught withthe hand by any one who will attempt to do it. I have beeninformed that at Oxford they have been taken thus by diving;and the numbers sometimes huddled together in favouritesituations may be judged from the fact, that Jonston refers toAlbertus as a witness that in the Danube in autumn ten cart-loads have been caught with the hand at one time.
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BARBEL. 17 The food of the Barbel is often vegetable, but it also feedsfreely on worms, insects, or any molluscous animal or substance;in search of which it not only keeps near the bottom, as dothe larger part of fishes which possess barbs at the mouth, butit will dig into the softer bottom of the stream. Anglers havetaken advantage of this propensity by throwing into the stillwater some of their well-known soft and fat pastes, by way ofattracting these fishes to the spot a few hours before the timethey are prepared to fish for them. They may then be inducedto take a bait freely, but when hooked they are not so readilybrought to land. The Barbel is indeed, as the Book of St.Albans remarks of the Carp, an evil fish to take; he is sostrong enarmyd in the mouth that there may no weak harnesshold him. Izaac Walton relates an instance where for severalhours the fish refused to be landed, and at last made its escape;which, according to this writer, it does by running its headforcibly toward

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