THE CAEP. 241 



Where the common carp originally came from, and when 

 introduced into England, it is difficult to say. Every one 

 knows the old rhyme quoted by Izaak Walton, — 



" Hops and turkies, carps and beer, 

 Came into England all in a year ; " 



and every one ought to know that the statements therein 

 contained are not true. Carp were probably imported 

 from Persia, and naturalized in this country in the four- 

 teenth century. In her treatise on angling, published in 

 1486, Dame Berners says, "There be but few in Englonde;" 

 but in the sixteenth century carp were to be found in abun- 

 dance in all European countries, and among ourselves were 

 cultivated in stews all over the country, for the purpose of 

 increasing the supply of the orthodox diet of Lent and 

 meagre-days. Carp were known of old to be gifted with 

 powers of longevity beyond all other fresh-water fish. In 

 congenial waters, like the ponds of Lusace, it is stated on 

 respectable authority that they will attain the age of 200 

 years. Buff on speaks of carp in the fosse of Portchartrain 

 which were 1 50 years old and still very lively fish. There 

 is good evidence to show that some of the carp introduced 

 into the ponds at Versailles at the close of the seventeenth 

 century were living just before the revolution of 1830. 

 At Fontainebleau there are cyprinidal patriarchs of perhaps 

 as great antiquity, and a few years ago I noticed that some 

 of them were nearly white, owing, doubtless, to age. Crafty 

 fellows are these old French carp, for instead of trying in 

 vain to bite the round, hard rolls which the old women by 

 the wall of one of the lakes sell to visitors for the purpose 

 of throwing to the fish, they push them along with their 

 noses till they get them to the wall, against which they 



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