NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 261 



Gold and silver fishes, though originally natives of China and 

 Japan, yet are become so well reconciled to our climate as to 

 thrive and multiply very fast in our ponds and stews. Linnaeus 

 ranks this species of fish under the genus of Cyprinus, or carp, 

 and calls it Cyprinus auratus. 



Some people exhibit this sort of fish in a very fanciful way ; for 

 they cause a glass bowl to be blown with a large hollow space 

 within, that does not communicate with it. In this cavity they 

 put a bird occasionally ; so that you may see a goldfinch or a 

 linnet hopping as it were in the midst of the water, and the fishes 

 swimming in a circle round it. The simple exhibition of the 

 fishes is agreeable and pleasant ; but in so complicated a way 

 becomes whimsical and unnatural, and liable to the objection due 



to him, 



" Qui variare cupit rem prodigialiter unam." 



I am, etc. 



NOTES TO LETTER LIV. 



1 Only fish which are very heavy in the head and shoulders die in the way 

 described by White. Other fish, such as trout, swim with their noses at the 

 surface of the water, standing on their tails, as it were, until they turn, bellies 

 up, and die. 



2 In favourable waters the gold-fish breeds very fast, and grows to a large 

 size. I know a small pond which is kept warm by waste water from the 

 boilers of an adjoining paper-mill, where these fish are in incredible numbers 

 for so small a space, and grow to four or five pounds in weight. It is excellent 

 sport angling for the larger ones. They take paste freely, and fight well. 



LETTER LV. 



October iQth, 1781. 



DEAR SIR, I think I have observed before that much of the 

 most considerable part of the house-martins withdraw from hence 

 about the first week in October ; but that some, the latter broods 

 I am now convinced, linger on till towards the middle of that 

 month ; and that at times, once perhaps in two or three years, 



