140 VIGNETTES FROM NATURE. 



themselves step by step to the most varying 

 tropical or sub-Arctic conditions. Those 

 which descended the rivers into India became 

 the ancestors of the beautiful carp-like fishes 

 of the Ganges and the Indus. Those which 

 slowly made their way into China gave birth 

 to the domestic carp, the goldfish, and many 

 other species. And those which still more 

 slowly spread into the outlying peninsular 

 tract of Europe differentiated themselves into 

 our familiar barbels, gudgeons, tench, chubs, 

 dace, roach, and minnows. 



From Europe the carp kind made their 

 way into the New World. As early as the 

 pre-glacial epoch, fossil forms show us that the 

 cyprinoids had already migrated into America, 

 no doubt across the fresh waters in the belt 

 of land which once lay upon the high sub- 

 marine bank between Scotland, Iceland, and 

 Greenland ; and the descendants of these 

 primitive immigrants now form the suckers, 

 white mullets, shiners, whitefish, and red-fins 

 of the Canadian lakes and rivers. Thus the 



