On deformities of the head in Salmonidae

In the » Verhaudlungen tier k. k. zoologisch-botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien” (Jahrg. 1863) Dr. Steindachner describes 3 monstrous beads of carps, presented to the Museum of Vienna, and suggests that these monstrosities could not be the results of some former wound, but that the deformity was caused by the pathological state of some part of the skull. In Isid. Geoffroy St. Hilaire’s interesting researches on teratology¹) we see on plate 1 (fig. 4, 5 and 6) three drawings of carp-heads, that bear a great resemblance to the figures of Dr. Steindachner’s. According to the author these anomalies are not very rare in France, at those places where carps are cultivated in ponds; and Otto ²) also states the appearance of such monstrosities in Silesia.