The body ratio, i.e. (Ratio of greatest body height to body length, both measured 

 without the fins) serves only to differentiate single races. It is also immaterial if 

 the flesh is found in a high or in a broad back^ or in any other part of the body. 

 barring prevailing fads of the market. 



Less stress, nowadays, is laid upon "form", since it has been demonstrated that a 

 "high back" depends strictly upon environment and will develop more easily under fully 

 satisfactory metabolistic conditions than under less favorable ones (for instance, by 

 rearing in cool water, as was observed by me and Demoll (1928) by raising carp in trout 

 ponds, keeping the stock low and feeding well). 



With increasing age, the length — in proportion to the height — increases not incon- 

 siderably (v. Rudzinsky). Exceptions to this rule are perhaps traceable to paratypical 

 factors upon which all bodily conditions are depending. After all, the rearing of 

 young carps differs in the different fisheries. 



The bodily proportions cannot be taken one-sidedly into consideration with regard 

 to "race identification", as enumerated under point U (page ). They can be considered 

 only under like environmental conditions, since they do not depend upon genotypical 

 factors alone, but also upon paratypical ones . 



The same applies to the color of the skin. For instance, under plentiful feeding 

 with maize, belly and sides may take on a sulphur-yellowish hue, due to an accumulation 

 of maize fat in the tissues. 



The relative size of the head — largest in Aischgrflnd carp, smallest in Lusatian 

 carp — and which decreases with a general increase in size — is also unusable for a diff- 

 erentiation of the races, according to Demoll. Upon his suggestion, the German Leather 

 carp association tried to induce fisheries to breed some distinctive scale formations 

 for each race. Although these efforts are promising and necessary to follow through, 

 they have led to two great difficulties in practice. In the first place, the ccmplete 

 scale formation required in the Lusatian carp has in itself no appreciable production 

 advantages since the Lusatian race has been almost completely crowded out of the 

 fisheries, because it is contrary to market demands. It was similar with the next 

 attained "line carps" of the Galician race in which Opitz very correctly finds fault 

 with the great danger of scale losses. A purely external parking must in no case 

 conflict with industry. Secondly, the attainment of a pure particular scale formation, 

 inheritable without throwbacks, has such great and unsurmounted difficulties that the 

 development of the marking has to a great extent become the main object. 



The breeding of "pure stock" of leather carp seems to succeed more often than the 

 breeding of "pure" mirror-carp, but there are many fisheries here, which by crossing 

 leather carps, obtain offspring which include one third mirror-carp and even some 

 "scalers". Nothing absolutely sure is known, canceming the hereditary transmission of 

 the scale coat, 



Rudzinski. who thus far alone has investigated the matter found as an absolutely 

 certain fact, that even scalers need not be of "pure stodc", smd that in case of cross- 

 ing, one will have 25 percent of fishes with entirely different scale coats. 



The crossing of scalers with mirror-carp or leather carp always produced only 50 

 p)ercent of scalers, while the others were either mirror-carp or leather carp. 



It follows that neither a lack of scales nor a complete scale coat can be considered 

 a recessive or even a dominant characteristic. 



The factors to be stressed most in fishbreeding are good health, marketability and 

 productivity. The mere breeding of a racial "label", so to speak, can never be an ultimate 

 goal . The "pure stock" question has always to remain more or less in the background, Juat 

 as in horticulture, for instance, the question of a "pure species" is never made to inter- 

 fere with strictly market consideration. 



lU 



