FISHES. 29 



dexterity ; rising to the surface, they turn on one side, 

 and bending the body like a bow, by bringing the head 

 and tail together, with a rushing movement spring over 

 the opposing obstacle, often to a distance of three and 

 four feet. Carp that are well fed grow very rapidly and 

 live to be very old ; some, it is said, are known to have 

 lived two hundred years. They are, in old age, subject 

 to disease, which shows itself in mossy excrescences on 

 the head and back, and is mostly fatal. The young are 

 not altogether exempt from it, supposed to be occasioned 

 by too much snow water running into the pond, or if 

 they are too long imprisoned under the ice. They are 

 also liable to an eruption like the small pox. On account ' 

 of their being a profitable article of commerce, particu- 

 larly in Polish Prussia, carp are carefully bred in ponds, 

 ingeniously arranged into divisions and designated by the 

 names of store, breeding, and fattening ponds. The first 

 receives the spawn and lodges the young in safety ; is so 

 shallow that the water may be warmed by the sun, pro- 

 vided with water plants, on which the eggs may fasten, 

 and so situated that neither frogs, crabs, aquatic birds, nor 

 rapacious fishes can approach. The young fry remain 

 two years in this pond, where they find suitable nourish- 

 ment in the insects and their larvae found there. They 

 are then taken out and put in the second-named pond, 

 the water of which is not pure, and fed on a variety of 

 articles, such as vegetables, earth-mud, dung, etc. It is 

 necessary to cut holes in the ice during the winter, that 

 the fish may receive fresh air ; these are termed "Wuhnen. 

 A better method, however, is to let off a portion of the 

 water under the ice, so that a free current of pure air 

 may pr.ss throughout the whole extent. A hail storm is ~ 

 very injurious to these fish, therefore the water ought to 



