carp. y 



•with soft water. A pond of one acre requires three or four 

 male Carp, and six or eight female ones; and in the same 

 proportion for each additional acre. The best Carp for breeding 

 are those of five, six, or seven years old, in good health, with 

 full scale and fine full eyes, and long body, without any blemish 

 or wound; the pond should be stocked in a fine calm day, 

 towards the end of March or beginning of April. Carp spawn 

 in May, .lune, or July, according to the warmth of the season; 

 and for this purpose they swim to a warm, shady, well-sheltered 

 place, where they gently rub their bodies against the sandv 

 ground, grass, or osiers; and by this pressure the spawn issues 

 out at the spawning season. All sorts of fowl should be kept, 

 from the ponds; the young fry is hatched from the spawn by 

 the genial influence of the sun, and should be left in this pond 

 through the whole summer, and even the next winter, provided 

 the pond is deep enough to prevent their suffocation during a 

 hard winter; then the breeders and the fry are put into ponds 

 safer for their wintering." 



We suppose that this caution refers to the danger arising 

 from the freezing over of the pond, by which the air would 

 be excluded, and the fish below be in danger of suffocation. 

 This would apply to all kinds of fishes; but jElian particularly 

 mentions fish which he terms Black Carps, and may have been 

 the common species, if they were not the Tench, as being caught 

 in the Danube, by gathering in multitudes at holes made in the 

 ice, when that river has been frozen over. 



The quotation we make proceeds: — "The second kind of 

 ponds are the nurseries; the young fish should be moved in a 

 fine calm day into this pond, in the month of March or April; 

 a thousand or twelve hundred of this fry may be well accommo- 

 dated in a pond of an acre. In two summers they will grow 

 as much as to weigh four, five, or even six pounds, and be 

 fleshy and well tasted. The main ponds are to put those into 

 that measure a foot, head and tail inclusive; every square of 

 fifteen feet is sufficient for one Carp; their growth depends on 

 their room, and the quantity of food allowed them. The best 

 season for stocking the main ponds are spring and autumn; 

 Carp grow for many years, and become of considerable size and 

 weight. Mr. Forster mentions seeing in Prussia two or three 

 hundred Carps of two and three feet in length, and one five 

 VOL iv. c 



