As to fish-ponds: at the time indicated it was quite usual for noblemen and other country gentlemen to have fish-ponds; in fact, a fish-pond was as necessary an adjunct of a large country house as its vegetable or fruit garden. These ponds, as the foregoing sketch will show, were of the most simple kind, and were often enough constructed by merely stopping a little stream at some suitable place, and so forming a couple of artificial lakes, in which were placed a few large stones, or two or three bits of artificial rock-work, so constructed as to afford shelter to the fish. There being in those days no railways or other speedy conveyance, there arose a necessity for fish-ponds to persons who were in the habit of entertaining guests or giving great dinner-parties; hence also the multiplicity of recipes in our older cookery-books for the dressing of all kinds of fresh-water fishes; besides, in the very ancient times, that is before the Reformation, when Roman Catholicism required a rigorous observance of the various church fasts, a fish-pond near every cathedral city, and in the precincts of every monastery, was a _sine qua non_. The varieties of fish bred in these ponds were necessarily very limited, being usually carp, some of which, however, grew to a very large size. There are traces also of some of our curious and valuable fishes having been introduced into this country during those old monastic times. Thus it is thought, as has been already stated, that the celebrated trout of Lochleven may have been introduced from foreign parts by some of the ancient monks who had a taste for gastronomy. The celebrated vendace of Lochmaben is likewise supposed to have been introduced in the same way from some continental fishery.