THE CAKP FAMILY. 95 



been alive and ready to swim about at the end of it. In 

 Holland this peculiarity is well known and acted upon, in- 

 somuch that it is by no means an uncommon practice with 

 the Dutch to fatten Carp for the table by hanging them in 

 a cool cellar in a net full of damp moss for three weeks or 

 a month, and feeding them with bread and milk, which is 

 passed into their mouths with a spoon. They refresh the 

 fish now and then by sprinkling the moss with water. 



There is a singularity in the structure of the interior 

 supports of the gill-leaves in the Carp, which no doubt 

 has a good deal to do with its power of enduring this sort 

 of amphibious existence : each of these supports is bony ; 

 whilst in the Perch it is formed partly of bone and partly 

 of cartilage, and in the Bream, Barbel, and Pike wholly of 

 cartilage. The number of the gill-leaves varies consider- 

 ably in different fish. In the Gudgeon, according to 

 Milne-Edwards, there are about 55 in a row, in the Tench 

 96, in the Barbel 106, and in the Carp 135. The air- 

 bladder in Carps is generally large, and is divided by a short 

 narrow neck or necks into two or more cells or chambers. 

 The woodcut represents a section of this bladder in the 



common Carp, with a probe introduced between the two 

 compartments. 



