THE CARP FAMILY. 103 



A hundred a hundred and fifty even two hundred 

 has been stated as the number of years attained by the 

 Carp under the most favourable circumstances. Sup- 

 posing, however, that this should be an exaggeration, there 

 is no doubt that many of the fish which were introduced 

 into the ponds at Versailles, &c., in the reign of Louis the 

 Fourteenth (say 1690) are either still living, or were so a 

 very short time before the Revolution of 1830. Dr. Smith, 

 in his ' Tour to the Continent/ mentions them, and ob- 

 serves that they had grown white through age. Valen- 

 ciennes refers to others in the basins at the Tuileries 

 which would also come when called by their names ; and 

 Buffon assures us that he had seen, in the fosses of the 

 Ponchartrain, Carp which were known to be upwards of a 

 century and a half old. 



It is a curious fact that great age and exclusion from 

 the light produce apparently the same effects, both on fish 

 and other animals, the skin or scales undergoing a sort of 

 bleaching process, either from a gradual drying up of the 

 invigorating juices of the body, or from the want of the 

 sun's rays. In the case of fish and reptiles whitened by 

 exclusion from the light, it is an almost universal rule that 

 the eyes are so much undeveloped as to produce total 

 blindness. The fish taken in the Mammoth-caves of Ken- 

 tucky are blind, and of a white, colourless hue, as also is 

 a species of Crawfish found in the same subterranean 

 waters. The Proteus anguinus, inhabiting the caves of 

 Illyria, exhibits the same peculiarities. This singular 



