THE CAttP. 63 



ice cold water) , when they have been so brittle that a smart concussion 

 would have broken them in many pieces like glass. Professor Owen 

 -explains this remarkable physiological fact in regard to the carp 

 "in a somewhat abstruse manner by saying that its " endurance results 

 from the formation of the vagal lobes of the Medulla oblongata." 

 It therefore can live on the minutest supply of oxygen. This also 

 explains how it has lived in the peculiar situation in which it is 

 sometimes found under roots of trees and in deep solid mud ; 

 situations so strange, Willoughby remarks, as to warrant the assumption 

 that the fish has resulted from spontaneous generation. This explanation 

 cf the endurance of carp will not, however, answer for the peculiar 

 fact that they have been, and probably still are, fatted out of water. 

 TBuffon says that at Anhalt Dessan they are fed on bread steeped in 

 brandy, and the Hon. Roger North says that considerable revenues are 

 derived from this kind of fish culture in Bradenburg, Saxony, Mecklen- 

 burg, Bohemia, and Holstein. Rheinold Forster, in " Philosophical 

 Transactions," art. 37, speaks of the same fact in Polish Prussia. 



In the general culture of this fish the Germans are considerably before 

 the English. The usual way is to drain the pond every seven years 

 when practicable, and, after taking the fish, the bottom is sown with 

 Tye grass, an enormous crop of which is often produced by the rich 

 black mud; the cleaning of the pond in such cases after the grass is 

 <;ut is an easy matter. After this common hay seeds are thrown down 

 and allowed to grow to a good turf growth. The water is then let in, 

 and the pond re-stocked with young Carp. The young grass is 

 especially beneficial to the store fish, and, if all other conditions are 

 favourable, the speed of growth is of very great celerity. This, at 

 least, is the method pursued at Holstein. 



There is also a method of castrating carp, which was first detailed in 

 England by a Mr. Tull to Sir Hans Sloane, who afterwards showed 

 the process to George IV. Sir Hans gave a full description of the 

 operation in a communication to Mr. Geoffrey, of the Eoyal Academy 

 of Science of Paris, from which it appears that eight "carrushens" 

 (a kind of carp from Hamburgh) were operated on. The ovary leads 

 out of the part termed the cloaca, and the experiment consists in 

 severing it from the ligamentary muscles and the membrane, and 

 afterwards sewing the wound up with a silk thread. The fish is then 

 returned to the water, and is said to be after a time more voracious, 

 and of a decidedly superior flavour when brought to table. 



The age of the carp is a very moot point, and the possibility of its 

 living to pass the tenth decade is maintained by some writers, especially 

 German. Gesner instances one which reached over one hundred years. 



