THE FRESH-WATER AQUARIUM, 43 
beginner to be careful, or he may regret having made 
their acquaintance. They are all savages, untameable 
savages, that delight in destruction, even if they cannot 
eat what they destroy. They will attack anything, and, 
with their spiny armour, dare the stoutest to retaliate 
upon their mischief-making pertinacity. In fact, they 
pass all their time in worrying the more peaceful members 
of the aquarium; and any one who has a few months’ 
experience of them, will consider them the savagest of 
imps. 
I have tried them on several occasions, and found them 
at spawning time more savage than usual; but at all 
other times savage enough. My favourite Prussian carp, 
that love me as I love them, that come when I call them, 
that hurry to the side when I fillip the glass with my 
finger-nail, that watch me with all their eyes when I sit 
in the room with them, and that feed from my hand as a 
dog would, show at the tips of their pretty tails the 
sanguinary signs of gasterostean vengeance. Their 
transparent tails are ragged through the attacks of those 
sharp-toothed savages, and more than one has succumbed 
to their persevering spite since my recent trial of them 
under the persuasion of a little friend who begged me to 
put in some “robins” he had caught at the brook. 
** Robins,” indeed, the red jaws of G. aculeatus are 
suggestive of his blood-thirsty propensities, and he now 
does penance with a dozen of his kindred in a glass jar of 
Callitriche autumnalis. With tench, gudgeons, and 
minnows they do better, but they are very annoying to 
carp of all kinds. 
