410 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ November 28, 1878, 
by the amount of shelter they enjoy and the season of the year. 
The Crucian carp, which love so well to bask under the great 
Lily leaves during the hotter weather, spend also a large por- 
tion of their time beneath any artificial shelter which may be 
provided, and are in that case more sensitive of observation 
than they would be if entirely exposed. 
Centre pieces of hollow rockery doubtless conduce to the 
comfort and welfare of the fish, but prevent them from be- 
coming thoroughly familiar excepting for a portion of the 
year. During the winter the fish are comparatively torpid, 
feeding little, and only showing in the fairest weather. ‘ 
With early spring they appear daily, and by theend of May 
or beginning of June have become perfectly tame, Tacing 
eagerly to be fed, and even seeming to show curiosity when 
the water is disturbed with the hand or otherwise. Now the 
male may be seen following the female, and the spawn is 
Fig. 62.—Erica exudans (see page 411). 
deposited, not in ribands or bands, but in countless scattered 
gtains, apparently attached to and entangled amongst the 
filamentous conferve and the complex leaping of Cerasto- 
phyllum demersum, &c. The young appear not to take more 
than a week or ten days in hatching (though on this point I 
admit that I need further observation), and would soon vastly 
outstock the capacity of the pond were it not for the hayoc 
made amongst them by their rapacious insect enemies, of 
which some mention has been made above. 
Immediately after spawning the parent fish become less and 
less-fold, and withdraw more and more from observation as 
the season advances, The Crucian carp is a handsome golden- 
yellow fish, and may be readily procured from 6 to 8 inches in 
length from any of the purveyors for aquariums. 
The English carp is in habit much like the preceding, but is 
less easily tamed and less likely to breed. It can be added 
when a few large showy fish are required. All the carps thrive 
best (in addition to such food as they may naturally obtain) 
on boiled potatoes reduced to a mash ; bread is objectionable, 
except in small quantities, 
The tench is a very handsome bronze-yellow fish, somewhat 
shy, but fond (like the carp) of sheltering underneath broad 
leaves near the surface. In the winter they nestle right in 
amongst masses of confervz or other weed, using it as we might 
a blanket for protection from the cold. 
Both carp and tench thrive much more rapidly under a higher 
temperature than that of the external air ; the former, as is well 
known, growing to large size in a few of the waters attached 
to factories in the north and heated by condensed waste 
steam. The latter I have experimented on myself in a tank of 
some size enclosed in a greenhouse and heated by hot water 
pipes to a temperature often ranging as high as 86° Fahr. 
Tench bred in this house became rapidly tame, darting eagerly 
forward to be fed, which was done at first with finely grated 
raw meat, and afterwards with large and small worms. One 
of these attained the length of 1 foot within fifteen months of 
being hatched. 
The perch is a handsome bold fish, a little impatient of heat 
and exacting of air supply ; with these care must be taken not 
to overcrowd the pond ; they require feeding with worms, tad- 
poles, or small fry, and when liberally supplied will grow 
rapidly to a good size, even ina pond of small compass. As 
an illustration of this I may state that the whole of the perch 
now stocking so abundantly, and with fair fish, many of the 
Australian lakes and rivers were bred in the course of a few 
years from the descendants of fish exported from England a 
few inches in length, and raised in a small pond not exceeding 
12 feet in the square in the garden of an enthusiastic piscicul- 
turist, Mr. Allport of Hobart Town. These reached in the 
course of a year or two as muchas 1 Ib. and 1} Ib. in weight, 
and the rapid increase of their progeny may be inferred from 
the statement made some time back in Australian papers that 
several tons weight had been taken in one season by angling 
in the large lake adjacent to the town of Ballarat. 
Gudgeons breed freely, but the adult fish are shy and rarely 
show. ‘The small fry coast about during the first season in 
shoals near the margin of the pond, and are amusing from 
their vivacity. These, like perch, require frequent partial 
changing of the water during hot weather, which is easily 
effected when a tap is laid on. All the other fish can be re- 
tained in the same water without change all the year round 
provided that an abundance of plants are grown.—J. P. 
SKIMMIA OBLATA. 
RECENTLY in Mr. Shaw’s nursery at Bowdon I had the 
pleasure of noticing a few small plants of this ornamental 
shrub in fine berry. They were not more than 6 inches high, 
each having three or four shoots. At this size the plants were 
extremely effective, and would be valuable for table decoration 
or for the front row in a show house. Skimmia oblata has 
very fine bright berries; they are much larger in size than 
those of Skimmia japonica—more like the Aucuba in that 
respect, and the berries are closer together in the head than 
they are on japonica. Anyone desirous of working up a select 
stock of berried plants for table or other purposes of decora- 
tion should, I suggest, include this plant in their list. There is 
also a variety of 8. oblata with fine variegated foliage, which 
if well berried would have a pretty and novel appearance 
when in good form.—R. M. : 
OUR BORDER FLOWERS—CENTROCARPHA 
GRACILIS. 
AMONG our many beautiful hardy perennial border flowering 
plants I have one under the name of Centrocarpha gracilis, 
The plant is possessed of very attractive properties, is of good 
habit, attaining the height of 2 feet or more under some circum- 
stances, and when established is very beautiful. Ata distance 
it is one of the most telling plants I know of for open spaces 
in the shrubbery or any other place, but it must have light and 
air for its development. It will endure a good deal of rough 
usage and a considerable amount of drought without any ap- 
parent injury. It is perfectly at home in the herbaceous 
border. 
I have an impression that it might be turned to good account 
for vases or pots for plunging in places where single specimens 
are required. Our plants commenced blooming in August and 
continued in great beauty until the November frost put an end 
to their beauty. They were admired by all who saw them. 
The ray-florets are a beautiful orange colour, the dise black, 
which is a fine contrast. It continues long in flower, and is 
