PRUSSIAN CARP. 359 



agreeable. This fish is exceedingly tenacious of life. I have 

 known them recover and survive after having been kept out 

 of water thirty hours. The numbers of the fin-rays are 



D. 18 : P. 14 : V. 9 : A. 8 : C. 19. Vertebrae 30. 



The length of the head, compared to the length of the 

 head and body without the tail, is as one to four ; including 

 the tail, as one to five ; the caudal rays being as long as the 

 head, and one fifth of the whole length. The body is deepest 

 on the line of the commencement of the dorsal and ventral 

 fins ; and the depth, compared to the whole length, including 

 the tail, is as one to three. 



The form of the head obtuse ; the mouth and eyes small ; 

 the body rather short and thick : the scales large ; seven 

 scales in an oblique line between the base of the first dorsal 

 fin-ray and the tubular scale of the lateral line, and six scales 

 below between that and the origin of the ventral fin ; thirty- 

 four or thirty-five scales along the lateral line ; this line de- 

 scending by a gentle curve from the upper free angle of the 

 operculum below the middle of the body, thence straight to 

 the tail : the pectoral fin commences in a line under the pos- 

 terior point of union of the operculum with the subopercu- 

 lum ; the dorsal and ventral fins commence on the same 

 vertical plane ; the length of the base of the dorsal fin nearly 

 equal to the depth of the body ; anal fin small, placed in a 

 vertical line half before and half behind the origin of the last 

 ray of the dorsal fin ; the stronger bony ray of the dorsal and 

 anal fin finely serrated, compared with the serrations in the 

 rays of these fins in the Common Carp. The tail forked, 

 divided into two nearly equally pointed halves, the longest 

 rays about one-third longer than the short rays of the middle 

 portion ; the upper part with ten rays, the lower portion with 

 nine. 



The top of the head and back olive brown ; the sides 



