62 BLEAK. 



making short and quick turns when he flies to catch flies in the air, by which he lives, so 

 does the Bleak at the top of the water." How often have I in Oxford days, while waiting 

 to take the accustomed oar in the University or College Boat, sat watching these silvery 

 little fish, so abundant in the Thames and Cherwell, and admired their swallow-like move- 

 ments ! The Bleak is supposed to be referred to by Ausonius in his Idyll on the Moselle, 

 in the line — 



" Norit et Alburnos prsedam peurilibus hamis." 

 "Who does not know the Bleak, the prey of boys' fish-hooks?" 



The Bleak, which is found in many of our English rivers, as in the Thames, the Lea, 

 the Trent, is said by Couch not to be a native of Ireland, that doubt exists as regards 

 Scotland also, and that it is unknown in Cornwall and Devonshire. It is gregarious in its 

 habits, is readily taken by a small artificial fly, or with a small bit of red worm, at a depth 

 of ten to twenty inches. The spawning time takes place in May, at which time, as is the 

 case with several other Cyprinoids, the head and gill-covers are rough to the touch. The 

 little Bleak, says Siebold, as it swims near the surface of the water, often perceives when 

 some rapacious Perch make a rush at it from underneath, when it jerks itself for a considerable 

 space out of the water, and thus eludes the pursuit of its enemy. 



From its surface swimming habits, as Siebold also remarks, it becomes very often the 

 prey of birds, as the Sea Swallow (Tern), and as these fish generally are infested more or 

 less with parasitic entozoa, the birds that swallow them become infested also. 



We must never despise anything because it is small ; everyone is familiar with those 

 little, shining, brittle globules known as artificial pearls ; the apparently insignificant, yet 

 withal beautiful Bleak used to be the chief element in their production. A French bead-maker, 

 by name Jaquin, found out how to make these artificial pearls, which, as Beckmann observes, 

 "approach as near to nature as possible, without being too expensive." Jaquin noticed that 

 when these fish, called ables or abkttes (a word evidently formed from alburnus), were washed, 

 the water was filled with fine silver-coloured particles. This he allowed to settle, and then 

 collected the sediment, which had the lustre of most beautiful pearls ; this soft shining 

 powder he called essence of pearl, or essence </' orient. At first he coated with it beads of 

 gypsum or hardened paste, and, as Beckmann observes, "since everything new, particularly 

 in France, is eagerly sought after, this invention was greatly admired and commended." It 

 was found, however, that when exposed to the heat the pearly coat came off and adhered 

 to the skin, which gave it a brightness far from desirable, so the ladies, for whose use it 

 was chiefly intended, proposed to M. Jaquin that small hollow glass beads should be coated 

 over in the inside with this essence of pearl. This he succeeded in doing; small glass 

 tubes were dipped in, and the pearly pigment injected into hollow glass globules of various 

 sizes and slightly different forms. The Bleak were caught in enormous numbers in the Seine, 

 the Loire, the Saone, and the Rhine; four thousand fish producing about a pound weight 

 of pearl essence, worth to the fisherman about twenty-five francs. The scale-deprived fish 

 were sold at a cheap rate as food for the common people. Jaquin' s date is uncertain, 

 Reaumur mentions the year 1656. From France the invention found its way to this and 

 other countries. I do not know whether the art of making these Bleak-scale pearls is 

 practised at the present day or not. I may mention that Dr. Badham states that the manu- 

 facture of pearls from Bleak scales was at length superseded by that of Roman pearls, of 

 soft unrivalled lustre ; the Roman pearl-powder was obtained from the swim-bladder of some 

 species of Athcrina caught in immense numbers in the Tiber. 



According to Izaak Walton, Bleak are "excellent meat;" Mr. Cholmondeley Pennell says 

 that "a few dozen Bleak marinated form an excellent breakfast dish;" Mr. Francis considers 

 them "very delicate eating when cooked in the way in which Sprats are commonly cooked;" 



