138 VIGNETTES FROM NATURE^ 



monasteries, modern naturalists have decided 

 that they were first introduced here early in 

 the seventeenth century. Yet there is still a 

 certain artificial pond-bred look about them, 

 which makes them harmonise well with these 

 dammed-up sheets of ornamental water. 

 The swift speckled trout suits the stickles and 

 reaches of our own native becks ; but the lazy 

 carp suits the slow stagnant pools which are 

 forced upon our unwilling scenery by check- 

 ing the brooks midway on their course 

 through their proper sloping English 

 combes. 



Originally, however, the habits and 

 manners of the carp family were very different 

 fiom those which this particular species has 

 acquired in the sluggish streams, broad lakes, 

 and banked up ponds of the Chinese low- 

 lands. Dr. Gunther, our greatest living 

 authority on the study of fishes, has traced 

 the migration and differentiation of the family 

 from its earliest form in its primitive home 

 to its numerous divergent branches over the 



