RIVER GARDENS ; 



to receive their food. We are informed, by the 

 same author, that the most beautiful kinds are 

 taken in a lake in the province of Che-Kyang. 



M. de Sauvigny, in his beautiful work entitled 

 " Les Dorades de la Chine," describes several of the 

 species and varieties to which I have alluded as 

 desiderata, and from the carefully drawn and ex- 

 quisitely coloured plates of his work, there appears 

 sufficient ground for considering the species as dis- 

 tinct as many other kinds of Carp, which have also a 

 strong family resemblance. The description of a few 

 of the examples from the work quoted will be 

 sufficient to show that if they are only varieties, 

 they are very distinct ones, quite as distinct to 

 borrow an analogy from vegetable life as the 

 nectarine and the peach, or the lemon and the 

 orange, though by botanists the lemon is only made 

 a variety of the orange, as the nectarine is of the 

 peach. The Chinese are, however, such accurate ob- 

 servers, that in all probability we may accept their 

 views regarding distinct species, especially when we 

 consider the minute attention that has been paid to 

 fish in the Celestial Empire, not only as to the means 

 of their capture, in which they excel all other nations, 

 but also in their nomenclature and classification, the 

 elaborate nature of which may be conceived when 



