THE ROACH 129 
the eyes of a favourite toast. Mr. Keene gives it as yellow, 
Mr. Seeley as silvery, while the latest authority, Mr. C. H. 
Wheeley, declares it is golden-red. Not having a specimen 
at hand to decide upon, I will not venture an opinion where 
high authorities are so much at variance. 
Unlike the Salmonidz, which part with their lustre at the 
approach of the spawning season, the roach, in common with 
other cyprinoid fish, increases in beauty at that time. It 
seldom exceeds 2 |b. in weight. Francis Francis regarded 
roach of that weight as mythical; and Frank Buckland, 
another practised roach-angler, pronounced all roach above 
that weight to be hybrids with the bream. Such hybrids, which 
occur pretty frequently both in England and Ireland, have 
sometimes received specific distinction, as the Pomeranian bream 
(Abramis Leuckartii), but the spurious origin of this fish is now 
pretty generally recognised. It may be distinguished at once 
from the roach by its whitish fins, and from its other parent 
by the tail fin, which is evenly lobed, and by the anal fin, 
which contains only from twelve to fourteen rays, instead of 
from twenty-six to thirty-one, as in that of the true bream. 
Notwithstanding the value to be attached to the opinion 
of such past masters as Messrs. Francis and Buckland, I 
possess recent and unimpeachable evidence of true roach 
exceeding 2 lb. in weight. For instance, in October, 1902, the 
Rey. H. G. Veitch caught two roach, which were weighed by 
Mr. R. B. Marston, editor of the Fishing Gazette, and proved to 
be respectively 2 lb. 5? oz. and 2 lb. 48 oz. These fish were 
forwarded to Mr. Boulenger, for the ichthyological collection 
of the British Museum, who pronounced them to be “ splendid 
specimens” of roach. A few days later the same angler for- 
warded two more, each weighing 24 1b. These fish were taken 
when netting coarse fish out of trout and grayling water near 
Salisbury. Mr. W.G. Fletcher took a roach with gentle in the 
Kennet, weighing 2 lb. 33 oz., which was exhibited on October 
28th, 1902, at the weekly meeting of the Piscatorial Society. 
9 
