CARP. 



Car}}, JoNSTON ; Titulus 3, Caput 6. 



" WiLLOUGiiBY; p. 215, table 2. 



Cijiyrintis Carpio, Linnaeus. Cuvier. Block ; pi. 16. 



" " Donovan; pi. 110. Jenyns; Manual,. p. 401. 



" " Fleming; Br. Animals, p. 185. 



" " Yarrell ; Br. Fishes, vol. i, p. 349. 



This species, with all others ol" this family, inhabits fresh 

 water, in which its haunts are in lakes or ponds, or slowly- 

 flowing rivers; where, in common with the other British species, 

 it is decidedly influenced by the cold of winter, at which season 

 they seek to withdraw into shelter and concealment, where 

 sometimes they even seem to become torpid, yet as not to 

 be killed even by becoming frozen, and from which condition 

 they are restored as warmth returns to the air. Whether the 

 reference is to the same species we are not able to say; but 

 Captain (Sir John) Franklin says in the history of his first 

 voyage to the Polar Sea, that the fish caught in their nets 

 became so frozen that in a short time they formed a solid mass 

 of ice; and by a blow or two of the hatchet they were easily 

 split open, so that their entrails might be removed in one lump. 

 But if in this frozen state they were thawed before the fire they 

 recovered their animation. This was particularly the case with 

 the Carp; and he has seen a Carp so completely restored after 

 having been frozen for thirty-six hours, as to leap about with 

 much vigour. 



As a contrast to this it is proper to adduce the experiments 

 of John Hunter, which he made with two Carps, placed in a 

 glass vessel with river water, and subjected to a freezing mixture 

 made of ice and snow with muriate of ammonia, by which the 

 temperature was reduced to 10°, and perhaps below it. In this 

 condition the vital heat of the Carp was sufficient to melt the 



