SCALES, MIRRORS, LEATHERS 



I take off one of these scales and see how it is 

 made. It is a thin, hard plate, elastic because it is so 

 thin, and broader than it seems from outside because 

 most of it is hidden beneath the one in front of it. 

 I have to make a decided effort to get it loose, and 

 I discover in those carp whose skin is still intact, that 

 it is not really entirely on the surface, but fixed in the 

 substance of the skin and, as it were, contained in it. 

 The soft tissues which hold it, although they are both 

 fragile and tenuous, serve to produce it and make it 

 grow. As the surface of the body gradually becomes 

 enlarged, these containing capsules grow, and with 

 them the scales which they contain. This growth 

 comes about by the formation of new substance around 

 that which already exists. Consequently, when I lift 

 up the scale and look through it, I can see within it 

 a series of fine concentric lines which correspond to 

 zones set down one after the other. 



When the growth stops, which is the case during 

 winter, the scales cease to grow, but they begin to 

 grow again the following spring, when the general 

 process of development is continued. But, as the 

 interruption has occupied a fairly considerable time, 

 the new substance does not usually completely resemble 

 the old, and when we look through the scale, it is 

 obvious that there has been a temporary cessation. 

 Thus we may discover the age of the carp, the inter- 

 ruptions taking place only once a year, in winter, and 

 similarly, the periods of growth being confined to 

 summer. In the particular scale at which I am now 

 looking I perceive the traces of two stoppages, alter- 

 nating with three periods of growth, and this shows 

 me that the fish, which has had three consecutive 

 stages of growth, has lived for three summers and two 

 winters. Three summers, then, represent its epidosic 

 age, its age of growth, from the Greek word epidosis 

 which has the same meaning, whereas its chronological 

 age actually amounts to only two and a half years. 



9 6 



