626 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



ered that the waters of the milder climates of this country possess this advantage, scarcely to be 

 judged of or estimated at its proper value as yet, that the fish may be able during three-quarters 

 of the year, or even the whole year round, to take food, and will omit the lethargic winter sleep 

 conditioned by the cold winter. There is scarcely a comparison to be made, so far as the Carp is 

 concerned, between the rivers of this country, so richly supplied with food, which it will not 

 be compelled to seek under a constant strife for existence, and the much poorer waters of the 

 Rhine, Elbe, Rhone, etc. In the waters of its native country, in Central Europe, after its first 

 awakening from the long winter sleep, it seeks most diligently the contents of the seeds of 

 the Nwphar luteum and Nymphcea alba (the yellow and white water-lily), the Phellandrium aqua- 

 ticum, Festuca fluitans, etc. The waters of the United States abound in all these plants and 

 numerous others the seeds of which will serve the fish as food; for instance, the wild rice (Zizania 

 aquatica and Z. Jluitam), the well known Tuscarora rice or "water-oats" with its great riches of 

 seeds, and many others, which will yield food profusely, and which European waters do not possess, 

 thus giving a great advantage to the American carp culturist. And then there is the culture of 

 fish iu ponds. There are culturists in Central Europe who, wishing to see the fish grow more rap- 

 idly, take the trouble to feed them with soaked barley, which they occasionally throw out in differ- 

 ent places, and by doing so they have had a very full success, the fish growing larger, that is, more 

 quickly than when not thus fed. By introducing the above-named wild or natural water plants 

 in carp ponds they will be perpetuated, and the grains which have fallen to the bottom of the 

 water will form an ample article of food for the first spring days, if we do not prefer to give them 

 the almost worthless offal of the slaughter-houses. I do not advocate the so-called artificial feeding 

 of this fish where the ponds themselves yield food in ample abundance, a consummation toward 

 which the Tuscarora rice will largely contribute. 



Let us once more consider the fact of its extraordinary increase of weight of about one 

 hundred and ten per centum in the exceedingly short space of four months, for during the cold 

 winter time, when ice thickly covers rivers and lakes, nature banishes it into its temporary tomb 

 which it chooses and digs for itself, to hold its winter sleep in. This fish needs from fifteen to 

 eighteen months of growth to gain, according to a low estimation, the weight of three pounds 

 without being fed. But much more satisfactory results are frequently arrived at when favorable 

 circumstances combine and when it will reach a greater weight. There are some culturists who 

 obtain in the same space of time fishes of four pounds' weight; of course they possess warmly situ- 

 ated ponds which thaw very early in spring, and perhaps they assist nature in some degree by 

 feeding the fishes. I have done so myself in two successive years, which were exceptionally warm, 

 when I fed the fishes with the almost worthless malt refuse or " grains." They increased visibly 

 and attained to the above-mentioned weight in the same space of time. 



This fifteen to eighteen months of the actual time of growth transpires during a period of three 

 years and six months, as intervening months of winter sleep are to be included, during which the 

 growth is interrupted. 



I will not recur to what this fish promises to become in the milder regions of the South, where 

 neither ice-bound water nor cold temperatures force upon it the lethargy of the winter sleep, where 

 it will have the longer space of from eight to ten months, or may be the whole year, including the 

 mild winter, for the most vigorous and rapid development, not, as in Europe, the sparingly allotted 

 four or five months. It is not to be doubted that the Carp will arrive at the weight of from two 

 and three-fourths to four poundsin one year in those warm climates, when in colder regions it 

 requires two years and six months. I do not think that I am mistaken in this; I am ready to 

 stand by this assertion, which the future will surely verify. 

 40 F 



