CYPEINID^ OE CAEPS. 263 



With regard to size : though at home a carp of fifteen 

 pounds is considered immense, the weight and dimen- 

 sions of many foreign cyprians go far beyond this — 

 twenty, twenty-five, and even thirty pounds, being by 

 no means unusual counterpoises for specimens fetched 

 from some German lakes; in Prussia, 'forty-pounders' 

 are not unheard of; Pallas speaks of one taken in the 

 Volga which measured five feet ; Valmont de Bomare, of 

 another served at the table of Prince Conti, at Offen- 

 burg, weighing forty-five pounds ; and another monster 

 was dragged from the Oder, near Frankfort, in 1711, of 

 the incredible size of nine feet long by three deep, the 

 weight of which was seventy pounds. Jovius speaks of 

 carp in the Larian Lake (Como) of two hundred pounds, 

 which were assailed by arrows shot from a crossbow 

 or by harpoons with a string attached; adding, that in 

 using these weapons it was necessary to strike the fish 

 against the scales, otherwise they would glance off with- 

 out penetrating the flesh. The tenacity of life exhibited 

 by carp is another remarkable circumstance in their 

 physiology : not only will they flourish for a very long 

 term of years under favourable conditions for growth 

 and development, but they have been not unfrequently 

 found alive in the muddy bottom of an almost empty 

 pond, where their bodies, potted and preserved, assume 

 sometimes very strange forms, being gradually moulded 

 into the shape of the hole in which they lay. Carp, 

 properly packed in moist moss, with a mouthful of 

 bread steeped in brandy, which is occasionally renewed 

 en rcmte, may be carried, it is said, almost to any dis- 

 tance in safety. In HoUand they are often thus kept 

 alive in cellars for months, and, being fed on bread 



gret ttat burglarious hands have carried off an historic pihe from 

 the Fellows' pond of the same college. May some ' ex ossibus 

 idtor' from his ribs stick ia that felon's throat for his crime ! 



