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CYPRINUS CARPIO. 1)7 



the middle of each scale, and then gives the effect of sub-parallel longitu- 

 dinal black lines. The lips are yellow. The dorsal fin is grey. The 

 pectoral, ventral, and caudal fins are violet. The anal fin is reddish-brown, 

 with orange rays. The iris is golden. All these colours vary with age, 

 nutrition, state of the water, season of the year, and other conditions of 

 existence. Occasionally varieties are found with unsymmetrical colouring, 

 and a fish may sometimes show glittering golden stripes on one side of 

 the body and pale steel-blue on the other. Sometimes typical Carp are 

 black, bluish, green, red, golden, silvery, and even white. Dr. Fatio records 

 that he has kept Carp in confinement which, originally green or golden, 

 became colourless in an opaque vase. 



The alimentary canal is twice as long as the body. It has no pyloric 

 appendages. The air-bladder is divided into two parts by a transverse 

 constriction. The hinder part, which is the smaller and longer, ends in a 

 point. From the hinder portion, close to the constriction, the air-canal, 

 or trachea, is given off, which at first is rather wide, and has its outlet 

 on the hinder part of the gullet. The base of the anterior part of the 

 air-bladder, which is somewhat bi-lobed, is connected on each side with 

 the auditory bones. 



The rate of growth of the Carp is rapid, but varies with the food, and 

 when six years old the fish may vary in weight from four to ten pounds. 

 After this age the growth is slower, and the animal increases more rapidly in 

 height than in length, so that there is no ratio between the length of a fish 

 and its weight. 



In Switzerland it rarely attains a length of three feet, and a weight of 

 twenty to twenty-five pounds. In France the Carp are usually smaller. 

 Large fishes are bred in the department of Oise, where they reach a weight 

 of eighteen pounds in twenty years, and sell for twenty-four francs each. 

 Heckel and Kner mention Austrian Carp, three to four feet long, weighing 

 thirty-five to forty pounds, and quote Bloch as authority for a Carp caught 

 at Bischoffshausen, near Frankfort-on-the-Oder, in 1711, which weighed 

 seventy pounds. A Carp was taken near Petersfield, in England, which 

 weighed twenty-four and a half pounds, and had scales as large as florins. 



The Carp prefers tranquil water, with a soft muddy bottom, in which 

 it can dig with its head and find food. It is essentially a vegetable feeder, 

 but subsists upon conferva^ young shoots, water-plants, decomposing plant 

 remains, mud rich in organisms, larvse, worms, and insects, and becomes fat 

 wherever the droppings of animals, especially of sheep, occur. Like many 

 other fishes, it feeds most frequently before the spawning season. 



In winter, as soon as the water begins to freeze, the Carp explore the 

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