without sufficient grounds. If these are to be believed without further examination, the names _cyprini_ and _lepidoti_ must be considered as those of carp; and the proposed question would be soon answered: but that opinion has scarcely probability in its favour when one searches after proofs. I shall not here lay before the reader everything completely that the ancients have said respecting the _cyprini_, and which is in part so corrupted by transcribers, that no certain meaning can be drawn from it. Were I to treat of the ichthyology of the ancients, it might be necessary; but as that is not the case, I shall only quote such parts of it as have been employed by Rondelet and others to prove that they were our carp. Their principal grounds seem to be, that among all the fish of the ancients no others occur which can with any probability be considered as carp. If the _cyprini_ therefore were not carp, these must not have been named by the ancients; and that undoubtedly will not readily be admitted. It is well known what a high value the ancients, particularly the Orientals, set upon fish, of which they had a great variety; and it appears that they preferred them to all dishes prepared from four-footed animals or fowls. Fish seem to have been the choicest delicacies of voluptuaries, and in that respect they are oftener mentioned by historians than fowls. Physicians also, to whom the most sumptuous tables have in all ages been of the greatest benefit, speak of fish oftener in their writings than of dishes made of the flesh of other animals. In the ancient cookery, the number of dishes prepared from fish is indeed great in comparison of those dressed from fowls. _Turdi_ and _attagines_ are much praised; but had pheasants, snipes, partridges, and others, been as much esteemed then as they are now, these would not have been forgotten, or would have occurred oftener. Fish at present form the principal food in Greece, as well as at Constantinople, and a great abundance and variety of them may be found there in the markets; but fowls which have been caught or shot are seldom exposed for sale. When the Egyptian and Greek monks wished to distinguish themselves by abstinence and temperance, they denied themselves all kinds of fish, as the richest delicacies, in the same manner as pretended devotees among the Europeans deny themselves flesh. But though all this may be true, it does not prove that our carp must occur in the writings of the ancients. The Roman voluptuaries, indeed, left very little untried that was likely to gratify their appetite; but it was impossible for them to make a trial of everything. There may have been particular reasons which prevented them from meeting with carp; and who will venture to affirm that all the knowledge of the ancients must be contained in those few of their writings which have been preserved to us by accidents?