248 FISHES

body, and builds nests for its young. The carps
(Cyprinidae) have no teeth in the jaws, but make up
for the deficiency by enormous teeth in the throat.
The carp is an acclimatised fish in this country, it
being a native of China, whence it came here by way
of Germany in 1614. The barbel, the roach, the
chub, the tench, the bream, the bleak, the loach, and
the minnow all belong to the same group. Another
group dear to the angler is the Sa/nondde, which in-
cludes not only the salmon, the trout, and the char,
but the smelt and the grayling, and that curious fish
the vendace, found in Britain only in one or two of
the Scottish lakes, but widely distributed over Europe
and North America in several more or less well-
defined species. Of the Hsocide the best known
representative is the pike; of the Scombresocide the
Most conspicuous members are the common flying-
fishes (Exocetus spilopterus) which take huge leaps
of 150 yards or more from the surface of the
tropical seas. To another group (the Osteoglosside)
belongs the largest fresh-water bony fish, the ara-
paima of Guiana, of which there is a specimen at
South Kensington fifteen feet long. And here it
may be fittingly said that these occasional references
to our great Natural History Museum are made not
because it contains the only collection or the best
specimens, which in many cases it does not, but
because it is one of the most generally accessible. A
couple of hours spent in the bays of its entrance hall
will teach the inquirer more natural history than as
many months spent in the mere reading of books.
The next group to that containing the gigantic