THE GOLDE-ORFE, (CYPRINUS ORFUS.) 561 



and to still more distant places, tbe fish being ou the road two days and 

 longer without being accompanied by a fish-breeder to pump in fresh 

 air or change the water, &c, will with pleasure be submitted for exam- 

 ination to any one who desires to see them ; and it will be found that 

 j ven when several hundred were sent together, not a single one was lost, 

 Xhe reader will know that none of the other superior kinds of fish could 

 stand such long journeys. 



All the fish belonging to the family of salmonoids require for their 

 well-being cool and deep or pure and running water, and whether 

 their flesh, which is mostly very fat, can be considered a wholesome, 

 digestible food, such as the "orfe 7 ' makes, I will leave to the physicians 

 to decide. 



It is, at any rate, certain that there are a large number of stagnant 

 waters in which no salmonoids can be raised, because these waters 

 contain such large quantities of noxious substances that not even tench, 

 carp, or pike can live in them ; in such waters I advise the reader to 

 place Cyprinus or/us. As was mentioned above, they live near the sur- 

 face, making use of the purest portion of the water, do not touch the 

 noxious substances accumulating at the bottom, and seek their food near 

 the surface. 



But if any one should distrust my experience of many years, I refer 

 %o the above-mentioned authorities, who tell us in every place that the 

 Cyprinus or/us has in former times been raised in the muddy, stagnant 

 water of the moats of the ancient cities of Nuremberg and Augsburg. 



Let every unemployed and unproductive pool of stagnant water be a 

 reproach to German pisciculturists, and an incentive to free themselves 

 from their old unpractical methods, and to raise not only fish which 

 fashion momentarily favors, but such fish as are suitable for the exist 

 \ng sheets of water. 



Our guide for the future of pisciculture is not only the little knowl 

 edge of our times, but let us examine what has been done in the dim 

 past, and let us gratefully adopt that which is really useful and profit- 

 able. 



B — CORRESPONDENCE RELATING TO THE GOLDE-ORFE.* 



By Prof. C. Th. E. v. Siebold. 



In a letter which the bureau of the German Piscicultural Society at 

 Berlin has addressed to the president of the Fishing Society at Munich, 

 dated December 5, 1871, the question is asked whether this society pos- 

 sesses any information regarding the breeding and the value of the 

 gold-orfe (Cyprinus orf us), which at present is raised at Weisbaden in large 

 quantities, which would justify its introduction into other regions, es- 

 pecially North Germany % If such were the case, the German Piscicul- 



* From " Circular No. 1," published by the Deutsche Fischerei-Yerein, Berlin, 1872. 

 36 F 



