444 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



!©».- ARILIT V OF CARP TO ENDURE Ml »»V, 8E1.VY, AND STAGNANT 



WATER.* 



By C. Itf. WHITE. 



I received from the United States Fish Commission, Washington, D. 

 C, twenty German carp during the mouth of February, 1883. The fish 

 were from li to 2 inches long, and having been unavoidably detained 

 in making a permanent pond, I made a temporary dam across the 

 stream, above where I intended to make my permanent dam. I put 

 the fish in that temporary pond. A few days before the permanent dam 

 was finished a heavy rain caused an overflow, and, as I then thought, 

 carried off all my fish into a large stream into which the smaller stream 

 emptied just below the dam. The stream upon which was the dam 

 being a wet-weather stream (one that went dry during the summer), I 

 arranged to supply water to the pond by pipes from my mill-race. 

 Thinking the carp had been washed out, I completed the dam, but did 

 not conduct the water there; this was during the latter part of April, 

 1883. Thus matters stood. The water in the stream ceased to run. A 

 green scum formed thickly over the stagnant water, and instead of a 

 fish-pond I had a first-class frog-pond. A dry summer following, the 

 water in this temporary pond got so low that some twelve or fifteen 

 hogs running into the adjoining field made it a place for wallowing 

 daily in the solt mud. The pond became veritably a mud-puddle, some 

 five or six yards long and one to three yards wide. The hogs continued 

 to wallow and the water to lessen, until it got so shallow that my father, 

 being at the pond or mud-puddle, one Sunday morning, saw what he 

 thought was the back-fin of a fish above the muck. We at once in- 

 vestigated, and by the use of a perforated tin took from this mess, to 

 our great astonishment, six German carp. The largest was 14 inches 

 long, as thick as a man's wrist, and as wide as the palm of the hand. 

 The oJiers were about 10 inches long and proportionally heavy. 1 put 

 them in fresh water until I could fix the pipes to conduct water from 

 the race to the pond, but unfortunately the largest carp died, 1 think 

 from a fall in leaping from the bucket and falling on the hard ground. 

 The five lived, and 1 have them now in my pond well supplied with fresh 

 water from the mill-race. At the time these fish were taken from the 

 "hog-wallow " there had been no fresh water entering it in anyway for 

 six weeks, nor had any food whatever been given the fish. Sow my 

 carp are as lively as kittens, and keep the water well stirred up in 

 nosing around. 



WABBKNTON, Va., October 13, 18S3. 



' Tins statement, being considered extraordinary, was sworn to before E. H. Down- 

 man, clerk of Fauquier county court, who also vouches for Mr. White. — C. W. S. 



