CARP. 1 7 



consists mainly of vegetables, and tliat portions of vegetable food are returned to the throat 

 and remasticated by these pharyngeal grinders. In cold wintry weather the Carp is more or 

 less dormant in the mud, like many other leather-mouthed vegetable fish-feeders. I have on 

 several occasions examined the stomachs and intestinal tract of Carp in the winter season, 

 but never found a vestige of any kind of food in them. Carp are perhaps the most wary 

 and shy of all fish, difficult to take by angling, and clever in avoiding the leads of the net 

 by burrowing under them in the mud, and in leaping over the corks. At the same time 

 they may be readily tamed, and taught to take their food from the hand. 



The Carp is believed to be a very long-lived fish ; Gesner mentions an instance of one 

 living to be a hundred years old ; and Buffon speaks of one living in his time of the age of 

 one hundred and fifty years; but though there is nothing improbable in this supposition, 

 further confirmatory evidence of this extreme longevity would be desirable. The size of Carp 

 varies according as the locality is favourable for their growth. Yarrell says that Carp have 

 attained three pounds weight by their sixth year, and six pounds before their tenth year; 

 they are therefore not so rapid in their growth as some other fish, and on this account are 

 long lived. The largest English Carp I have read of is that mentioned by Mr. Manley, in 

 his pleasant little manual. Fish and Fishing. This fish was taken by a net out of Hartino- 

 Great Pond, near Petersfield, in 1858; its length without the tail was thirty-four inches, the 

 weight twenty-four pounds and a half; some of the scales were said to be of the size of half- 

 crowns. The Carp of the White Sitch Lake, Weston Hall, the seat of the Earl of Bradford, 

 are famous for attaining great size and weight. In a letter, dated April 14th., 1878, his 

 lordship writes to me, "There is a portrait of a Carp at Weston caught in the last century, 

 and mentioned in Daniell's Rural Sports, of nineteen pounds and a half, and we caught one 

 the other day which I think was more." It is said that in some of the German lakes they 

 grow to the weight of forty to fifty pounds, and that in Holland fish of twenty pounds 

 are not uncommon. The Carp of the Larian Lake (Como), said by Paul Giovio (Jovius) — • 

 born 1483 — to attain the enormous weight of two hundred pounds, and to be shot by arrows 

 from a cross-bow, I think we may put down as a fiction. 



It is well known that Carp are exceedingly tenacious of life, and will live for a long time 

 out of water. There is no mechanical arrangement for retaining water in contact with the 

 gills, as exists in the Apodal, the Lophioid, and Labyrinthi-branch fishes. Professor Owen 

 associates with the branchial respiration and the apparatus of gristly arches and muscles the 

 peculiar development of the medulla oblongata as the centre of the vagal or respiratory nerves. 

 He writes, "the peculiarly developed vagal lobes may relate to the maintenance of the power 

 of the respiratory organs during a suspension of their natural actions." — {Comp. Anat. of 

 Vert., i. 287.) 



In quality of flesh, as an article of food, generally speaking, Carp are little estimated ; 

 in ordinary ponds, and indeed even in rivers, the flesh has always more or less a muddy 

 flavour ; but after a Carp has been kept for some time in small ponds or stews, whose water 

 is supplied by perennial springs of bubbling fountains, the flesh has not the slightest muddy 

 flavour about it ; the vegetable growth in such stews affords ample food, and Carp become 

 exceedingly good and veiy fat. Such Carp are not often to be met with ; but let any con- 

 noisseur taste specimens of such fish as Mr. Masefield can supply, and he will acknowledge 

 that the culinary art as practised and recommended by Izaak Walton is not requisite. The 

 Carp should be merely boiled ; a little melted butter and walnut pickle is a better condiment 

 for a fountain-fed Carp than old Izaak's sweet marjoram, thyme, parsley, savory, rosemary, 

 onions, pickled oysters, anchovies, cloves, mace, orange and lemon-rinds, and claret wine, etc.,. 

 etc. 



The Greek name Kuprinos is probably derived from Kiipris, "Cypris," a name of Aphrodite 

 or Venus, from the island where she was first worshipped ; and applied to the Carp on account 



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