64 THE PRACTICAL FISHERMAN. 



Buffon quotes an authority who asserts he had seen one of over 2001b. 

 weight, and 5ft. in length ; such a fish must have been very aged. 



Eheinold Forster says he was shown some carp in a pond at Char- 

 lottenberg of 2ft. and 3ft. long, and he was told they were between 

 fifty and sixty years old. I do not think this is exaggerated. Mr. 

 Pennell, in one of his publications, refers to carp in a lake in Windsor 

 Park, which, although only about a pound or two in weight, never- 

 theless, according to the testimony of the then fishermen, were thirty 

 years old. Like barbel, these fish seem impervious to the influence of 

 time, and age only seems to add to their unwieldy bulk and to 

 deteriorate their quality in a gastronomic sense. It is said that the 

 big old carp to be found in the fosse of the Chateau at Fontainbleau, 

 in France, were placed there in the time of Francis I. Buffon speaks of 

 some in the fosse of Portchatrain which were one hundred and fifty years 

 old. There is no method of precisely determining the age of these fish. 

 An approximation may be arrived at, however, by a microscopic ex- 

 amination of the scales and counting the concentric rings. 



The carp is a fish very susceptible of electrical impressions. Of 

 this I have repeatedly convinced myself by insulating a convenient 

 receptacle containing carp, and passing a charge of electricity through 

 the water. Although previously still, and apparently asleep, the 

 immediate excitement caused by the shock it is impossible to describe, 

 whilst the process of filling a glass globe, containing these fish, with 

 electricity, as one would a Leyden jar, has produced in the fish a 

 state of uncontrollable agitation painful to witness. There is no doubt 

 that earth currents influence other fish especially trout in an analogous 

 manner ; and from water being a superior conductor of the electric 

 fluid to air, I infer that the effect of atmospheric changes on fish are, 

 in proportion, more marked than the same on the human being. We 

 all know how much the weather has to do with the general balance of 

 our own healths. 



The Gibel carp is distinct from Cyprinus carpio in many important 

 respects. For the principal of these I quote Mr. Pennell : " The whole 

 general appearance of the fish is much more thick and chub-like than 

 the common carp, resembling, in fact, the rudd in external form more 

 than any other fish the common carp much more nearly approaching 

 that of the barbel. In the common carp the length of the head is 

 almost invariably greater than the depth of the body in the deepest 

 part, while in the Prussian carp it is always much less. The scales 

 of the Prussian carp are larger, the number in the lateral line being 

 about thirty-three, and in the common carp about thirty-eight. The 

 mark, however, by which the angler may always at once distinguish 



