CHUB. 39 



Chub are to be cleaned as soon as possible after being taken, split open, and rubbed with 

 salt or lemon, and that if anglers will insist on eating of their spoil, they must, above all, 

 remember "that a Chub kept for a single night uncleaned is absolutely tmedible.'" 



A Chub of three or four pounds weight would be considered a good-sized fish ; Yarrell 

 states that one of five pounds is the most that he can find recorded; Mr. Cholmondeley 

 Pennell, who has given a table of comparative weights and lengths of Chub, records, as three 

 of the biggest fish, the following lengths and weights : — 



A Chub weighing slbs. s^oz. measured 21 inches. 



6 2^- " 22 



7 oJ- " 23 



Our English word Chub has clearly been given to the fish to express the broad size of 

 the head ; it is the Anglo-Saxon eopp, German kopf, the Latin caput, the Greek Ke^aXtj, the 

 Sanskrit kapdla; but Mr. Manley is quite right in objecting to the term as implying the idea 

 of a clumsy logger-headed fish, because the Chub's head does not justify such an appellation 

 in the least ; the head is certainly broad, but not at all out of proportion ; and the Chub, as 

 Mr. Francis says, "Is a well-shaped, handsome-looking member of the Carp tribe," and I 

 hope my readers, on referring to the plate, will acknowledge this fish to be so. The Latin 

 name of Capito is given by Ausonius as the name of the Chub, and other writers have 

 merely followed his nomenclature as having the claim of priority. In some parts of the 

 north of England, as about the Eden, the Esk, the Lowther, Eamont, and other rivers, the 

 Chub is called the Shelly, a term no doubt having reference to the large scales of the Chub. 

 A very similar word, Schelly, is in the neighbourhood of Ullswater applied to a very different 

 fish, namely, to the Coregoniis elupeoides, one of the Salmonidee, known at Bala as the Gwyniad, 

 and at Loch Lomond as the Powan. The term Schelly, as applied to this latter named fish, 

 may refer to its bright shining scales, or to the ease with which the scales fall off from the 

 body when handled ; with this we may compare the expression to scale a fish, or the term 

 shale in geology. 



The specific distinctions of the Chub are as follows: — "Body oblong, its depth being one 

 fourth or rather more than one fourth of the total length (without caudal). Head very broad, 

 the width of the interorbital space being about two fifths of the length of the head. Mouth 

 wide, its cleft extending to below the front margin of the orbit ; upper jaw slightly over- 

 lapping the lower. The hindmost suborbital bone is rather larger than the first, the width of 

 the third much less than that of the last. Origin of the dorsal fin opposite to the root of the 

 inner ventral rays. Length of the ventral fin more than one half that of the head. There 

 are three longitudinal series of scales between the lateral line and ventral fin. Coloration 

 uniform ; margins of the scales greyish. Pharyngeal teeth hooked, slightly denticulated, 

 5.2 — 2.5." — (Giinther.) 

 The fin formula is 



Dorsal 11. 



Pectoral 16. 



Ventral 9 — 10. 



Anal II. 



The specimen figured was supplied by Mr. Masefield, of EUerton Hall. 



