MINNOW. 



63 



Mr. Manley holds that they "are neither worth the cooking nor eating, having a muddy 

 flavour, or at the best being tasteless, while they are too large to eat like Whitebait, and 

 too small to get a solid mouthful from." 



From the Bleak's preference to feed in places where drains pour in their foul water, 

 some have supposed arises the presence of a kind of tapeworm which infests the intestines 

 of this fish, and that the agitated manner in which it often swims on the surface of the 

 water is to be accounted for by the presence of its parasitic guest; hence the term "Mad 

 Bleak," as applied to this fish when performing these uneasy gyrations. This may be so, 

 but why are not other fish equally affected in a similar way? I have opened a great 

 number of fish belonging to various families, and my experience is that they always contain 

 parasitic entozoa, and very frequently tanicc or tapeworm. A glance at Diesing's Systema 

 Hehninthitvi, vol. ii. p. 383 to 423, will show how extremely liable are all fish to various 

 parasitic entozoa in different parts of their bodies. In the Roach Diesing enumerates as 

 many as fourteen species as occurring; in the Bleak he mentions six, the species of tapeworm 

 in the latter fish being the Tania torulosa of Batsch. 



The Bleak seldom attains to a length beyond seven inches ; the colour when fresh is 

 light greenish, or light brown with a slight tinge of blue; sides, cheeks, and belly brilliant 

 silver ; eye very large ; the dorsal fin is situated far back ; cleft of the mouth directed upwards. 



The fin-ray formula is 



Dorsal 10. 

 Pectoral 17. 

 Ventral 9 — 10. 

 Anal iS. 



The specimen figured was taken from the Thames at Oxford. 



Hybrids between the Bleak and Chub, and the Bleak and Rudd have been described. 



Order IV. 

 PHFSOSTOMI. 



Family 

 CVPRINID^. 



IMINNOW. 



{Leiuisciis pho.xiiius.) 



Pkoxinus, Belon, De Aquatil. p. 322. 



Pisciailus varius ex Phoxinorum gencre, Gesner, p. 715. 



A Pink or Minim or Minnow, Willughby, Hist. Pise. p. 268. 



Cyprinus tridadylus varius oblongus tcretiusculiis, Artedi, Spec. Pise. p. 12 No. 23. 



Cyprinus phoxinus, Lin., Syst. Nat. p. 528; Do.novan, Brit. Fish. iii. pi. 60. 



Leucisciis pkoxinus, Fleming, Brit. An. p. 188; Yarrell, i. p. 423; Thompson, 



Nat. Hist. Ireland iv. p. 138; Gunther's Cat. vii. p. 237. 



Phoxinus laevis, Siebold's Siisserwasserf. p. 222. 



Minnow, Minim or Pink, Yarrell, i. p. 423; Couch, Fish. Brit. Isl. iv. 64. 



XT is not at all certain that the fish of which Aristotle speaks under the name of ^o^iw? 

 -*- is the Minnow of our rivers and streams, although this term has been applied to this 

 little fish ever since the time of Belon (born about A.D. 15 18). The Greek word signifies 



