CYPEINIDiE OR CARPS. 361 



parit;' and of these the reader may take his choice. 

 The word carpa, whatever its origin may he, is a very 

 old one, occurring first in Cassiodorus^ a writer of the 

 sixth century ; long after whom, we find the words car- 

 pera and carpo used as designations for this fish hy 

 writers of the thirteenth century : the latter occurs in 

 a legend of Csesarius, quoted by Beckmann, where the 

 Prince of evil, indulging in a frolic, appears in a coat of 

 mail, having ' scales like a carpo.^ The English form of 

 the word does not occur in the Anglo-Saxon Dictionary 

 of Alfric Archbishop of York, who died in 1051, but 

 is used in Dame Berners' book on Angling, published 

 in 1486, wherein ' carpe' is declared to be 'a daynteous 

 fysshe, but there ben but few in Englonde, and therefore 

 I wryte the lesse of hym. He is an evyll fysshe to take, 

 for he is so stronge enarmyd in the mouthe that there 

 maye noo weke hamays hold hym.' The iisuaUy as- 

 signed period for their introduction into our country, by 

 Leonard Mascal, of Plumstead (Sussex), in the reign of 

 Henry the Eighth, must consequently be erroneous. 

 The precise dates when carp were severally transported 

 into France, Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark, and from 

 what aboriginal stock aU these different colonists sprang, 

 are points not easily determined ; as, however, they ap- 

 pear to thrive most in warm latitudes, and are found to 

 dwindle remarkably in the north,* the supposition of 

 their having a southern origin is by no means improba- 

 ble. Hardy and prolific beyond most other fish, their 

 • spread, when once mankind had begun to naturalize 

 them, was most rapid; and towards the middle of the six- 

 teenth century there was scarce a country unacquainted 

 with carp ; in many, stews on a vast scale were stocked 

 exclusively with cyprini, and thus an unfailing supply 

 of orthodox diet for Lent and meagre-days was never 



* Pontoppidan. 



