CHAPTEE XIV. 



DOMESTICATED AND ACCLIMATISED EISHES ; ARTIFICIAL IMPEEG- 

 NATION OF OVA — TENACITY OF LIFE AND EEPEODUCTION 

 OF LOST PARTS — HYBERNATION — USEFUL AND POISONOUS 

 FISHES. 



A FEW fishes only are thoroughly domesticated — that is, 

 bred in captivity, and capable of transportation within cer- 

 tain climatic limits — viz. the Carp, Crucian Carp (European 

 and Chinese varieties). Tench, Orfe or Ide, and the Goramy. 

 The two former have accompanied civilised man almost to 

 every place of the globe where he has effected a permanent 

 settlement. 



Attempts to acclimatise particularly useful species in 

 countries in which they were not indigenous have been made 

 from time to time, but were permanently successful in a few 

 instances only ; the failures being due partly to the choice of 

 a species which did not yield the profitable return expected, 

 partly to the utter disregard of the difference of the climatic and 

 other physical conditions between the original and new homes 

 of the fish. The first successful attempts of acclimatisation 

 were made with domestic species, viz. the Carp and Gold- 

 fish, which were transferred from Eastern Asia to Europe. 

 Then, in the first third of the present century, the Javanese 

 Goramy was acclimatised in Mauritius and Guiana, but no 

 care seems to have been taken to insure permanent advan- 

 tages from the successful execution of the experiment. In 

 these cases fully developed individuals were transported to 



