CARP. 
9 
with soft water. A pond of one acre requires three or four 
male Carp, and six or eight female ones; and in the same 
proportion for each additional acre. The best Carp for breeding 
aie those of five, six, or seven years old, in good health, with 
lull scale and fine full eyes, and long body, without any blemish 
or wound; the pond should be stocked in a fine calm day, 
towards the end of March or beginning of April. Carp spawn 
in May, June, or July, according to the warmth of the season; 
and foi this purpose they swim to a warm, shady, well-sheltered 
place, where they gently rub their bodies against the sandy 
giound, grass, or osiers; and by this pressure the spawn issues 
out at the spawning season. All sorts of fowl should be kept 
from the ponds; the young fry is hatched from the spawn by 
the genial influence of the sun, and should be left in this pond 
through the whole summer, and even the next winter, provided 
the pond is deep enough to prevent their suffocation during a 
Wd jinter; then the breeders end the fry are pul into ponds 
safer for their wintering.” 
O 
We suppose that this caution refers to the danger arising 
from the freezing over of the pond, by which the air would 
be excluded, and the fish below be in danger of suffocation, 
i his would apply to all kinds of fishes; but A:iian particularly 
mentions fish which he terms Black Carps, and may have been 
frie common species, if they were not the Tench, as being caught 
in the Danube, by gathering in multitudes at holes made in the 
ice, when that river has been frozen over. 
The quotation we make proceeds :-“The second kind of 
ponds are the nurseries; the young fish should be moved in a 
fane calm day into this pond, in the month of March or April; 
a thousand or twelve hundred of this fry may be well accommo- 
dated in a pond of an acre. In two summers they will grow 
as much as to weigh four, five, or even six pounds, and be 
fleshy and well tasted. The main ponds are to put those into 
that measure a foot, head and tail inclusive; every square of 
fifteen feet is sufficient for one Carp; their growth depends on 
their room, and the quantity of food allowed them. The best 
season for stocking the main ponds are spring and autumn; 
Carp glow for many years, and become of considerable size and 
weight. Mr. Forster mentions seeing in Prussia two or three 
hundred Carps of two and three feet in length, and one five 
VOL iv. Q 
