In order to answer the question here proposed, another point may be considered. As all nations at present give these fish the same name, it is probable that it was brought with them from that country where they were first found, and from which they were procured. Cassiodorus, who lived in the sixth century, is the oldest author as yet known in whom that name has been observed[121]. In a passage where he speaks of the most delicate and costly fish, which at that time were sent to the tables of princes, he says, “Among these is the _carpa_, which is produced in the Danube.” In the earliest Latin translation of Aristotle, the word _cyprinus_, as Camus says, is expressed by _carpra_. In the thirteenth century this fish was called by Vincentius de Beauvais[122] _carpera_, and by Cæsarius _carpo_; and it is highly probable that both these names allude to our carp. By the above passage of Cassiodorus, the opinion that these fish were the _cyprini_ of the ancients obtains a new, but at the same time a very feeble proof; for the _cyprinus_ was found also in the Danube, as we learn from Ælian[123], who among the fish of the Ister, mentions black _cyprini_; and these, according to the conjecture of Professor Schneider, were the black fish of the Danube which Pliny considers as unhealthful or poisonous, and like which there were some in Armenia. Our carp indeed are not poisonous, but Pliny alludes to a particular variety, and what he says was only report, to which something must have given rise, as also to the idea of carp with a death’s head, and the head of a pug-dog, as some have been represented by writers of the sixteenth century. The _carpo_ of Cæsarius appears to have been our carp, because its scales had a very great resemblance to those of the latter; for we are told in the work already quoted, that the devil, once indulging in a frolic, appeared in a coat of mail, and had scales like the fish _carpo_. The _carpera_ of Vincent de Beauvais is still less doubtful, as the same craft in avoiding rakes and nets is ascribed to that fish as is known to be employed by our carp. Sometimes they thrust their heads into the mud and suffer the net to pass over them; and sometimes they join the head and tail together, and separating them suddenly, throw themselves towards the surface of the water, and springing often four or five feet above the net, make their escape.