C. auratus of Linnæus, the lovely gold carp, will hold pre-eminence among domestic fishes for its splendour of colouring, though among true naturalists I think the Prussian carp will always compete with it to advantage, for the gold fish is certainly the dullest-minded of the family, and, like most fops, lazy and unteachable. Pennant says, "In China every person of fashion keeps them for amusement, either in porcelain vessels, or in the small basins that decorate the courts of the Chinese houses. The beauty of their colours and their lively motions give great entertainment, especially to the ladies, whose pleasures, from the policy of the country, are extremely limited." This carp appears to have been introduced into Britain about 1611, though the precise date is now difficult to determine. Mr. Yarrell leaves it an open question.
A large number of those reared for sale are the produce of waters which receive the waste steam from factories, and which are thus kept to a temperature frequently as high as 80 degrees. In fact this carp is most prolific in tepid water, though those that are bred at a lower temperature are more beautiful. The gold carp is not the only fish that can bear such high degrees of heat, perch and mullet have been found in waters at 86 degrees; live eels were found by De Saussure in water heated to 113 degrees, and other instances, mentioned in Bushnan's "Study of Nature," show the adaptability to temperature in fish of many other species. I had minnows frozen into a solid mass last winter, and the same day they were thrown into a tank, in a room where a fire was burning, and in a few hours were sporting about in a genial warmth of 60 degrees, a change of more than thirty degrees in a few hours.
The trade has been so long established that a modern gold fish is truly a manufactured article, and the patterns vary from high class beauty to very decided deformity. Domesticated creatures are all liable to vary from their original type, but in the gold carp this variation proceeds to an extent not observed in any other animal which man has taken under his care. Their colours are as various as their forms; some have stumps instead of dorsal fins, with perhaps tails as large as their bodies; some have triple-forked tails, and perhaps no trace of a dorsal fin at all, and in purchasing, it is as necessary to look to the structure and outline of the fish as to its colours, or, on after inspection, the purchaser may find himself in possession of creatures as bright as morning sunshine, but in form as ugly as toads. There is no better food for gold fish than the crumb of bread. Many writers condemn this; I can only say that they thrive for years upon it, but if more be given at a time than the fish can eat, it soon renders the water impure and does mischief.
Cyprinus Brama, the common bream, is a fish of bold outline and pleasing habit. The depth from the dorsal to the ventral fin is nearly equal to the length of the body, and justifies the comparison applied to a high-shouldered biped, "backed like a bream." There is a prettier species called the Cyprinus Buggenhagi, Pomeranian Bream, a specimen of which was lately supplied me, with a parcel of other fish, by Mr. Hall, the intelligent naturalist, of the City Road.
C. Leucisus, the dace, C. rutilus, the roach, and C. alburnus, the bleak, may be classed together, as fishes well known to all who were ever seduced into playing truant, to try their boyish luck with a blood-worm and a bent pin, or who have since sunned themselves in the holiday pages of Izaak Walton, to fall in love with milk-maids, and dream all night of reedy rivers that sing and sparkle, and fishes fried in meadow cowslips. These are delicate fish, whether for the table or the tank. As the latter concerns me most here, let me warn the reader to proceed cautiously, for these lovely creatures have a sad habit of perishing quickly in confinement. In winter time they may be kept with ease, but as spring approaches, the best care for them will only be rewarded by the spectacle every morning of one or two floating on the surface, never to swim again; while they do live, there are no more interesting creatures to be found for the gratification of the domestic circle. Bleak are even more sportive than minnows, and will chase a fly or small spider thrown in to them, till they tear it into shreds, and then will fight like Irish lads for the pieces. An aquarium, stocked with bleak and minnows, is a perpetual Donnybrook Fair, and will provoke the laughter of the dullest melancholic that ever looked at water as a medium wherein to end his imaginary woes. They soon feed from the hand, and eat bread greedily, darting after the crumbs with even more eagerness and vivacity than a party of school boys scrambling for halfpence. Their dazzling silvery scales, marked with the bright lateral line of spectral green, their taper forms, and large bright eyes, enlist all our sympathies, and compel us to doat upon them. If they are the best of fishes in this respect, they realise Wordsworth's famous passage—
"The best die first,
But they whose hearts are dry as summer's dust,
Burn to the socket:"
and hence as to longevity they prove themselves the worst. Dace are very tameable, and soon grow bold and familiar in captivity, comporting themselves in their attitudes and motions much like Prussian carp. Of the three, dace are the most hardy; I have some which have survived eighteen months' confinement, and are now enjoying the sunshine in the garden.
The aquarian, contemplating the silvery spangles of his white fish, may like to be reminded that the scales of dace, roach, and bleak, were formerly used in the manufacture of Oriental pearls, and are still used to some extent in making the imitations of pearl that occasionally gleam under the chandelier upon the brows of laughing belles.