528 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 
uniform courtesy. Through the kindness of Prof. Herbert Osborn 
I was enabled, when in Sandusky, to make my headquarters at the Lake 
Laboratory of Ohio State University, where I had the use of a table 
for considerable periods during the summers of 1901 and 1902. And, 
finally, I wish to express my gratitude to the many fishermen who 
took great interest in my work, who gave me whatever information 
was at their disposal, who permitted me to accompany them on their 
fishing trips, who shared with me their food, and who were my com- 
panions in camp for weeks at a time. Other special acknowledg- 
ments haye been made in their proper places throughout the report. 
THE SPECIES CYPRINUS CARPIO LINN US. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Within the past decade the carp has become so generally distributed 
throughout the United States and so abundant in some places that 
nearly everybody is more or less familiar with it in a general way, but 
it has been almost universally neglected in the descriptive works in 
this country, further than a simple statement of its occurrence. It 
may therefore be well to give a brief description of the carp and its 
principal varieties. 
The carp belongs to a family of fishes (Cyprinids) best represented 
in America by the minnows (especially of the genus Votropis) which 
abound in most of our lakes and streams. In the eastern United States 
the members of this family are all small, the largest rarely attaining 
18 inches in length, while the smallest is scarcely 2 inches long 
when adult. The Old World species are generally much larger than 
this, and on the Pacific coast there are a few which reach a length of 
5 or 6 feet, and which are also apparently more closely related to the 
European forms in structure. 
Scientifically the carp is known as Cyprinus carpio, the name given 
to it by Linneus. It varies greatly in many of its characters, a con- 
dition probably brought about in large part by its state of domestica- 
tion, or semidomestication, for a number of centuries. In shape it 
varies from a long, rather slender fish (pl. 1), whose height scarcely 
equals one-fourth its length, to a deep form nearly or quite half as 
high as long. The greatest height is at the anterior end of the dorsal 
fin. In all cases, however, the body is rather strongly compressed 
laterally, the cross section never approaching close to circular. The 
greatest breadth is normally a short distance back of the head, but the 
bodies of female fish are often, before the breeding season, distended 
with roe toa considerably greater breadth. This dimension in nor- 
mal individuals usually equals less than half the height. The snout is 
blunt, and in typical forms the dorsal outline rises from the snout in 
a nearly uniform bow or arch to the base of the dorsal fin. 
