142 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 
the greenish-yellow tints on the sides; the iris is golden or 
red; the throat is black, the breast, pectoral fins,-and corners 
of the mouth are red, and the belly is white. But all this 
is subject to variation in individuals, and the artist who 
proposes to represent the minnow faithfully must wield 
a swift brush, for all these gay tints disappear soon after 
death. I. have seen it stated that, when spawning, 
minnows emit a phosphorescent glow at night, but I am 
unable to confirm this from observation, and may be per- 
mitted to doubt it. 
There is no more sociable fish than the minnow ; he 
is never to be found save in company with his kind. No 
edible substance comes amiss to his unflagging 
appetite ; if the morsel is too large for a single 
minnow to tackle, his companions gather thickly round, 
and soon demolish it among them. In this manner they 
dispose of the dead bodies of their own kind. Spawning 
in Britain is usually accomplished in May or June, when 
the skin of the head and back develops warty tubercles, 
which disappear immediately after the operation. The ova 
number from 700 to 1,000 in well-grown females, and 
are shed among the gravel in shallow water, where they 
sometimes form coherent masses measuring as much as 
eight inches by two. 
The minnow is found in suitable waters in nearly all 
parts of Europe, except the Spanish peninsula, but it is 
said not to be indigenous to Ireland, though it 
Distribution. . : 
has become established in some parts of that 
island as the result of acclimatisation. In Scotland it is 
locally abundant, but it is completely absent from certain 
watersheds. Messrs. Harvie Brown and Buckland do not 
mention it in their work on the fauna of the Moray 
Basin. Though it is plentiful in the streams of Eastern 
Galloway, especially in the Cree, which divides Kirkcudbright 
from Wigtownshire, it is not found elsewhere in Scotland, 
Habits. 
nin 
