COMMON CARP.. 181 



sometimes exceeded the weight of the emptied fish 

 itself when weighed against it. 



The age to which the Carp arrives is very great, 

 and several well authenticated instances are adduced 

 of its arriving at that of considerably more than a 

 century at least. Many of those which were intro- 

 duced into the ponds at Versailles;, &c. in the reign of 

 Lewis the fourteenth are either still in being, or at 

 least were so a very short time before the French 

 Revolution. Dr. Smith, in his Tour to the Continent ^ 

 mentions these, and observes that they were grown 

 White through age. BufFon assures us that he had 

 seen, in the fosses at Pontchartrain, carps which 

 were known to be of the age of an hundred and 

 fifty years. Others alTirm that they have been 

 known to arrive at the age of two hundred years. 



The Carp is commonly supposed tT) have been 

 introduced into this country so lately as the reign 

 of King Henry the eighth : it is however more 

 than probable that it must have been known at an 

 earlier period, since, as Mr. Pennant observes^ it is 

 mentioned by Juliana Barnes in her well-known 

 work the " Boke of St. Albans,'' the earliest publi- 

 cation of which is in the year 1496. 



The Carp is chiefly cultivated in some parts of 

 Germany and Poland, where it forms a very con- 

 siderable article of commerce ; the merchants or 

 dealers purchasing the fish of the noblesse, wliQ 

 draw a good revenue from the produce of their 

 ponds. The method of feeding and managing carp 

 on this large scale is thus detailed by Dr, Forster 

 in the Philosophical Transactions. 



