VOL. LXI.] VHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 13JI| 



of the size of about one acre, requires 3 or 4 male carp, and 6 or 8 female ones ; 

 and so in proportion to each acre, the same number of males and females. 



The best carp for breeders are 5,6, or 7 years old, in good health, in full 

 scale, without any blemish or wound (especially such as are caused by the lernaea 

 cyprini Linn, a kind of cartilaginous worm) with fine full eyes and a long body. 

 Such as are sickly, move not briskly, have spots as if they had the small-pox, 

 have either lost their scales, or have them sticking but loosely to the body, whose 

 eyes lie deep in their heads, are short, deep, and lean, will never produce good 

 breed. Being provided with a set of such carp as are here described, and suffi- 

 cient to stock a pond with, it is best to put them, on a fine calm day, the latter 

 end of March or in April, into the spawning pond. Care must be taken, that 

 the fish be not too much hurt by being transported in a hogshead, nor put into 

 the pond on a stormy day ; for they are easily thrown upon the shallows on the 

 sides, being weak and harassed by being caught, removed, and not yet ac- 

 quainted with the deep holes for their retreat, in the new habitation. 

 X? Carp spawn in May, June, or July, according as the warm season sets in 

 earlier or later. The warm weather expands and swells gently the bodies of the 

 fish ; and their bellies being distended with roe and milt, they feel an itching 

 about those turgid parts, and therefore swim to a shallow, warm, sheltered place, 

 where the bottom of the pond is either somewhat sandy or gritty, where some 

 grass and aquatic plants grow, or where some ozier branches and roots hang in 

 the water; they gently rub their bodies against the ground, the grass, or oziers, 

 and by this pressure, the spawn issues out; and as the milter, by a natural 

 instinct, follows the spawner, and feels the same itching, the calls of nature are 

 gratified in the same manner, and the soft roe or milt is spread over the spawn, 

 and thus impregnated. Carp in this season are frequently seen swimming, as if 

 it were in a circle, about the same spot, which is merely done with an intention 

 of repeating the rubbing of their expanded bellies. The finest and calmest 

 summer days are commonly those on which carp spawn; Providence having thus 

 made a provision for the greater security of the fry of so useful a fish; as other- 

 wise, in a stormy day, the spawn would be washed towards the banks, where it 

 would be eaten up by birds, or trampled by men and quadrupeds, or dried up by 

 the heat of the sun, and a whole generation of carp entirely destroyed. In a 

 pond of his uncle's, Mr. F. frequently found the carp in a warm summer 

 evening, round a large stone, rubbing their bellies against the hard sandy ground; 

 he often approached with as much silence as possible, put his hands and feet 

 among the sporting carp, and had the satisfaction to see them pass and repass 

 through his hands, without being in the least disturbed ; but at the least noise or 

 quick motion occasioned by him, they moved away with suprizing velocity. 



