I told you that Sir Francis Bacon thinks that the Carp lives but ten years:
but Janus Dubravius has writ a book Of fish and fish-ponds in which he
says, that Carps begin to spawn at the age of three years, and continue
to do so till thirty: he says also, that in the time of their breeding, which
is in summer, when the sun hath warmed both the earth and water, and
so apted them also for generation, that then three or four male Carps
will follow a female; and that then, she putting on a seeming coyness,
they force her through weeds and flags, where she lets fall her eggs or
spawn, which sticks fast to the weeds; and then they let fall their melt
upon it, and so it becomes in a short time to be a living fish: and, as I
told you, it is thought that the Carp does this several months in the year;
and most believe, that most fish breed after this manner, except the Eel.
And it has been observed, that when the spawner has weakened herself
by doing that natural office, that two or three melters have helped her
from off the weeds, by bearing her up on both sides, and guarding her
into the deep. And you may note, that though this may seem a curiosity
not worth observing, yet others have judged it worth their time and
costs to make glass hives, and order them in such a manner as to see
how bees have bred and made their honeycombs, and how they have
obeyed their king, and governed their commonwealth.
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