THB GOLDEN CARP. 187 



even proves destructive when it comes in contact with small 

 animals ; and although this fluid is insufficient actually to put a 

 large fire out, it so far extinguishes it immediately around the 

 creature itself, as to enable it to escape uninjured from the con- 

 suming element. A curious instance of both these properties in 

 the salamander is mentioned by Kirby, in his elaborate treatise on 

 Animals, vol. 2. page 424, which he gives us on the authority of 

 two ladies, acquaintances of his, who witnessed the fact, and upon 

 whose accuracy he informs us he can place implicit reliance. These 

 ladies, who resided at Newbury in a house that was in a very 

 damp situation, were much annoyed by frogs and a species of newt, 

 (which in fact turned out to be the salamander), that infested their 

 cellars. Being desirous to exterminate such unpleasant inmates, 

 open war was forthwith declared against them all, and several 

 frogs were in consequence shortly after captured and put into a 

 pail to await their final doom ; when to the great wonder of the 

 ladies, to whom the captives were exhibited, the frogs one after 

 another turned upon their backs, extended their legs quite stiff, 

 and died almost instantaneously. The cause of this upon a closer 

 inspection they found to proceed from the baneful contact of a 

 little newt or salamander, that they detected running actively 

 around amongst the frogs, every one of whom the moment the 

 reptile touched it instantly expired in the manner just before 

 stated, whilst their destroyer, amidst the confusion he had thus 

 created, managed to creep out of the pail and escape. A few 

 nights afterwards one of these little newts of whom by this time 

 the domestics stood in no small dread intruded himself into their 

 company in the kitchen, when one of them bolder than the rest 

 mustered sufficient courage to seize it with the tongs and cast 

 it into the midst of the burning cinders of a powerful fire that was 

 blazing away in the grate, doubtless with the intention of at once 

 reducing it to ashes, when, to the utter amazement of all present, 

 the reptile, instead of being consumed, dodged with remarkable 

 activity through the burning coals, and finally emerging from the 

 bottom of the grate ran off apparently uninjured ! 



But to return to our subject The golden carp is so well known 

 that a particular description of it seems needless. In form it 

 differs but little from the crucian carp, the chief distinction being 

 in the colour, and the golden carp wanting the barbules which the 

 crucian has. Golden fish however occasionally exhibit those 



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