220 THE RIVER-SIDE NATURALIST. 



abdominal line very convex ; the base of the dorsal fin 

 short, and placed behind the line of the ventrals ; base of 

 the anal very long ; pharyngeal teeth in one row. 



The fin-rays are: dorsal, n 12; pectoral, 15-17; 

 ventral, 10 ; anal, 27-31; caudal, 19. 



The general colour yellowish-white, becoming browner 

 by age, something like the carp, and hence its name Carp- 

 Bream. The irides are golden-yellow ; cheeks and gill- 

 covers silvery-white. The pectoral and ventral fins are 

 tinged with red ; the dorsal, anal, and caudal tinged with 

 brown. 



Buckland says the bream " is quite an angler's fish." 

 Izaak Walton's description of the bream stands good to the 

 present day. " The bream," he says, " is a large and 

 stately fish. He will breed both in rivers and ponds, but 



THE BREAM. 



loves best to live in ponds, and where, if he likes the water 

 and air, he will grow not only to be very large, but as fat 

 as a hog." He also remarks that " some say breams and 

 roaches will mix their eggs and milt together ; and so 

 there is in many places a bastard breed of breams that 

 never come to be either large or good, but very numerous." 

 Day says: "I have already remarked, p. 177 "("On 

 the Roach "), " how hybrids between the roach, Leuciscus 

 rutilus, and other Cyprinidce, cannot occur in Ireland, be- 

 cause the roach of that country is L. erythropthalmus, or 

 the rudd, which is termed a roach in the Emerald Isle. 

 It is not, however, improbable that elsewhere the L. rutilus 

 (the true roach) may also assist in the creation of hybrids 

 with the bream." 



