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NA TURA L HISTOR Y. 



Formosa, and Java. It does well in brackish water, and attains a large size in tlie Caspian Sea. The 

 Carp is long-lived, and is believed to live to a hundred, or even to two hundred years. Tn Germany 

 the Carp is regarded with a degree of epicurean appreciation which, in Britain, finds no parallel. In. 

 both Austria and Prussia they are as much an article of culture as any produce of the land. Carp 

 ponds ai'e somewhat costly to make, for there need to be sepai'ate ponds for spawning, for a nursery, 

 and for the ordinary mature life of the fish ; and it is stated that the sale of Carp makes no small part 

 of the revenue of the larger landed proprietors in Northern Germany. A fish supposed to be sixty 

 years old had a length of five feet. Other large Carp are referred to as weighing thirty-eight 

 pounds and more. The Carp is tenacious of life, and in winter is kept alive in Holland for weeks, 

 by being placed in wet moss -which is hung in a net. The fish at first require to be 

 frequently dipped in water, but gradually adapt themselves to the new condition, and feed on 



CUUCIAX CARP. 



bread and milk. The ordinary food of Carp consists of larvae of insects, worms, and various 

 water-plants. It has been known to feed on minnows. It becomes tame in the ponds, and readily 

 assembles to take bread or boiled potatoes. In winter it hides in the mud, and passes 

 months without eating. It breeds usually in the third year, but the number of eggs increase 

 with age, and, in a fish of ten pounds' weight, the eggs number seven hundred thousand. 

 The ova are deposited upon water-plants in May and June, and at this time the female is 

 commonly followed by more than one male. They develop much better in ponds and lakes than in 

 rivers. A remarkable account is quoted by Couch from the Gentleman's Magazine of a custom of 

 removing the roe from the living fish, when they are said to acquire a flavour as much superior to that 

 of ordinary Carp as the flesh of the ox is to that of bull, or a capon to a cock. Carp appear to have 

 been introduced into England in the fifteenth century, pi-obably by German monks. The Germans 

 have a prejudice against allowing frogs to enter the Carp-ponds, and Couch, quoting Pennant, states 

 that on fishing a pond in Dorsetshire great numbers of Carp were found, each with a frog mounted on 

 it, the hind legs clinging to the back, and the fore legs fixed in the corner of each eye of the fish, 

 which were thin and wasted. The colour of the body is golden-brown, darker on the head and upper 



