86 FISH CULTURE IN BRITISH EAST AFRICA 
the old pipe intake, and below Mr. Grogan’s house, Chiromo. 
When carp become abundant, it is intended to try their acclim- 
atisation in the brackish waters of Lake Nakuru, Lake Elmen- 
teita, Olbollosot, and various other lakes. Carp have become 
acclimatized in the Caspian, and it is hoped that they may 
become acclimatized in the brackish waters of East Africa, 
where it would be hopeless to attempt the cultivation of the 
salmonidse. No doubt carp have a wide field of usefulness 
before them in the dams and brackish lakes and river pools of 
British East Africa where trout will not thrive. They will live 
long in dirty, sluggish water. They will even survive for a 
time when the water is gone, provided they can burrow in 
damp sand. They will take any sort of food. Says Sir Herbert 
Maxwell in his recently published charming work on British 
Freshwater Fishes : ‘ Carp dislike strong water, and although 
they thrive in the Thames and many other rivers, it is only the 
sluggish parts of them that they frequent, and they may be 
considered as sharing with the tench the attribute of being a 
distinctively pond fish. In their diet they may be termed 
omnivorous, browsing freely upon grass and water-weeds, but 
far from disdaining worms, larvae, and small fish of other species.’ 
One of the chief uses of carp near houses in warm countries 
is their habit of eating up mosquito larvae, and thus acting as 
mosquito traps. During the day, at my house at Nairobi, 
little is seen of the carp. But at evening, when the mosquitos 
and gnats come out to skim on the water, the carp may be seen 
taking their evening meal, coming up with a rush and that 
peculiar smack-of-the-lip sound, which characterises the feeding 
of these fish. At my house, during the past warm weather 
and mosquito season, there have been fewer mosquitos than at 
most houses in Nairobi in spite of a good deal of vegetation 
which naturally harbours them. Some years ago in Paris, 
during an epidemic of mosquitos, it was decided, after a 
scientific inquiry, that householders had to do one of two things : 
(1) maintain fish in their ponds, or (2) keep their cisterns and 
ponds coated with a layer of paraffin. 
My experience has been that carp want little or no artificial 
feeding, and they thrive best in moderately deep water through 
which there flows a gentle current. They will thrive in stagnant 
