MONSTER CARP FROM BERLIN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 185, 13 October 1876, Page 8

MONSTER CARP FROM BERLIN.

I HAVE received a very valuable addition to my museum iv the form of a splendid giant cai'p, the largest I have ever had the pleasure of looking on. It was most kindly brought to Albany street to me by Lord Arthur Russell, M.P., for Tavistoek, who, as we all know, takes the greatest interest in practical fish culture, and who knows as much about rare European fish as any living ichthyologist. The history of this carp is as follows : There is a fishmonger in Berlin who had given out, that he could supply carp up to thirty pounds weight. Lord Odo Russell, British Ambassador at Berlin, gave this man an order for a large carp. After waiting some time the man produced the specimen which Lord Arthur has brought me. It came all the way from Berlin, carefully packed in a basket. It was in admirable preservation, and a little carbolic acid soon freshened him up. The weight of this splendid fish is no less than twenty-seven pounds ; he measures two feet ten inches in length, and one foot eleven in circumference ; his head is like a great pig, and his back like that of a hippopotamus. The largest carp in my museum is (a cast of course) of a fish which weighed twenty-one pounds. It was given to me by Mr. Charles, of Arrabella road. There are some very aged carp in Windsor Park. Yarrell records large carp as follows : A. br^fe weighing thirty-five pounds, from Mr. Ladbroke's Park, at (^B ton ; a carp taken at Stourbead, thirty inches long, twenty^RW inches girtb, and weight eighteen pounds. There is a painting of a carp at Western Hall, Staffordshire, the seat of the Earl of Bradiord, which weighted nineteen and a half pounds, so that Lord Odo Bus sell's monster German carp is, I believe, the largest on record in modern times. Of course I shall make casts of this splendid fish, and shall then present, in Lord Odo Russell's name, the fish to Professor Flower, for the Royal College of Surgeons. The carp's bones are very firm and white, and the fellow will make a splendid skeleton. Carp certainly live to a very great age. A correspondent not long since recorded a carp that was known from positive facts to be ninety years old. I should not be at all surprised if the fish now in my castingroom was uot from one hundred to one hundred and fifty years old, and I am in great hopes that we shall be able to get some evidence aa to age from the appearance of the bones of the skeleton. Carp, when very old, are said to turn white. The origin of this story is, that carp are very much subject to a disease of white fungus growing on the scales. I shall endeavor to obtain of the fishmonger in Berlin further particulars of this splendid fish, for which I am much indebted to the gentlemen who so kindly procured it for me. — ' Frank Buckland.'