There is a sort of food for fish, which I may call accidental, and is no less improving, than the best you can contrive; and that is, when the waters happen to receive the wash of commons where many sheep are fed, the water is enriched by the earth, and shall feed many more carps, than otherwise it would. This is the case at Antlingham in Norfolk, where there are ponds in a common that raise carp wonderfully, although the soil be sandy and poor, and the waters seldom let out; and this earthy wash is the reason of it. When cattle are fed upon the pastures by your great waters, if they have access to them, in hot weather they will take delight to stand in the water; the dung that falls from them, is also a very great nourishment of fish. It is believed, that about London the fishmongers have ways of making carps fat by the offal of butchers shops and slaughter-houses; which I do not at all recommend to others, if that were to be done, because a sudden filthy feeding can neither be wholesome nor sweet. But I have not observed, that carps do in any sort delight in blood, nor indeed any other fish, except breams; and those will feed much upon new grains mixed with blood; so that if you will be at the charge of feeding them in stews, like carps, you may have large breams in six or seven years, which are a very slow grower, unless it be in springy waters. One way of feeding fish is worth remembering, though not fit to be used in waters that you ever look upon. It is laying a dead carrion upon stakes in the middle of the water, and it will breed maggots, which falling into the water, feed the fish very considerably; but I have not proved it. As for pikes, the best food to raise them up to an extraordinary fatness is eels; and without them it is not to be done, but in a long time; otherwise small perches are the best meat you can give them. And the common opinion, that pikes will not eat perches, because of their armed backs, is a great mistake, as I have found by certain experience. Breams put into a pike-pond, will breed exceedingly, and are good enough to maintain pikes, who will take care they shall not increase overmuch. And the great fry of roaches and rouds that come from the greater waters, removed into the quarters of your pikes, will be good diet for them. Pikes in all waters, and carps in hungry springy waters, being fed at certain times, will come up and take their meat almost from your hand; and it is diverting enough to see the greediness and striving that will be amongst them for the good bits, and the boldness, that by constant and regular feeding, they will come to. _Of disposing your Increase of Fish._ This care presseth when you employ your great waters; and unless you have projected beforehand how you shall dispose your fish, you will find yourself in great disorder.