BREAM 



365 



day, but there is no fixed eating time for a bream ; but once 

 he starts feeding, he is Hkely to go on, if the shoal be kept 

 together. Should a bream catch sight of you, if in a shal- 

 low, he will dart off, and "mud," reappearing later on. 



A fine old four-pound black-backed bream makes a grand 

 dish if you catch him when full, some two or three weeks 

 before spawning, and cook him a la juive, as described for 

 pike and roach. 



Old fishermen tell you, however, the way to cook a bream 

 is to skin him, and let him simmer in hot water for a few 

 minutes, and then fry him in butter. But he is sweeter 

 treated a lajitive. 



There can be no doubt but that bream " mud " in very 

 cold weather, for I have known bottom-fyers throw them 

 out of the dikes in their dydles. 



Though they seldom exceed more than four pounds in 

 weight, still numerous are the Broadsmen's legends about 

 them. " I never knowed a bream 'ter die of old age," says 

 one. "There's bream over a hundred year old in this 'ere 

 broad — ay, old horned bream, with corals all a-hanging ter 

 'em," says another. "That there be," confirms another. 

 " Why, I ha' caught a pike in these 'ere waters without a 

 tooth in his head," adds a third. And so on, and so on. 



ON A NORFOLK RIVER-SIDE. 



