CYPRINUS CARPIO. 99 



market ; but in Switzerland, owing, perhaps, to the abundance of Trout, it 

 is held in less favour. In England, the Carp of the Thames, when large, are 

 remarkable for richness and delicacy of flavour. The flavour of the flesh is 

 best from autumn to spring, and that of the river and lake Carp is firmer and 

 more prized than that of the pond Carp, which, however, may be improved 

 by being placed for a week in better water. It is best boiled, and eaten 

 with melted butter and pickled walnut. It is usually taken with the net, 

 the weir basket, and with the rod, when worms or cooked egg, or pieces 

 of bread, cheese, or grain, may be used as bait. In Holland the Carp is 

 often kept alive in cellars for months, and fattened for the table on bread 

 and milk. Dr. Badham tells us that the Jews of Constantinople, being for- 

 bidden by the Levitical law to eat caviare, discovered that the large roes of the 

 Carp made an excellent substitute ; and, the fish being scaly, it was perfectly 

 orthodox to partake of its roe. But the roe was removed from the living fish, 

 and it is recorded that Samuel Full somewhat modified the Eastern practice. 

 He cut open male and female Carp, entirely removed the milts and ovaries, for 

 which he substituted pieces of felt, and then united the wounds by suture, 

 and placed the patients in their pond. They not only recovered strength, 

 but grew rapidly, became fat and heavy, and when they were cooked for table 

 the flavour proved more delicate than that of Carp which had not been 

 "felted.'' Occasionally sexual varieties are produced, some Carp being 

 sterile, or neuters, and more rarely some are hermaphrodites. 



Among the diseases to which this fish is subject, one of the most obvious 

 is a mossy growth on the head. When the water in which it lives is too 

 warm, vesicles like small-pox develop beneath the scales. It is liable to 

 ulcerations of the liver ; to visceral obstructions, produced by feeding too 

 freely on chickweed; it is affected by carbuncles, internal and external 

 parasites, a skin disease ending in blindness, and various epidemic diseases. 



The varieties are numerous. One of them is known as the Mirror Carp, 

 or Carp-king. It differs in the arrangement of the scales, which are three 

 or four times the ordinary size, and do not cover the body, but form one to 

 three rows along the sides, with naked skin between. This variety is known 

 only in ponds, where it breeds freely, and it is recorded that a female King- 

 Carp produced more than one thousand young when fertilised by an ordinary 

 Carp. When a King-Carp has a row of large scales down the back, as well 

 as scales in the lateral line, it is termed a Saddle-Carp. These scales readily 

 fall off with age, and when scaleless the skin becomes dark and leathery, 

 and the fish is known in Germany as the Leather-Carp. 



Three varieties have been thought sufficiently important in Germany to 

 receive distinctive names. They are the Cyprinus acuminatm of Heckel, 



