134 THE SPORTING FISH 



Some authors have imagined that this fish is a 

 hybrid between the Bream and the Roach, an 

 opinion which Walton also seems to have shared. 

 " There is," he says, " a kind of bastard small 

 Roach, that breeds in ponds, with a very forked 

 tail, and of a very small size, which some say is 

 bred by the Bream and right Roach ; and some 

 ponds are stored with these beyond belief; and 

 knowing men that know their difference call them 

 Rud : they differ from the true Roach as much 

 as does a herring from a pilchard. And these 

 bastard Roach are now scattered in many rivers, 

 but, I think, not in the Thames." Elsewhere he 

 adds, " Some say that Breams and Roaches mix 

 their eggs and milt together ; and so there is in 

 many places a bastard breed of Breams that never 

 come to be very large or good, but that are very 

 numerous." 



The species referred to by Walton are, no 

 doubt, the true Rudd and the W T hite Bream, or 

 Bream-flat, the more common size of the former 

 being, as he describes, exceedingly small, and the 

 latter seldom exceeding a pound in weight. The 

 researches of modern ichthyologists have, how- 

 ever, thrown great doubts upon the existence of 

 any constantly recurring hybrids amongst fish, and 

 there can be no doubt that in the instances referred 

 to the three species are distinct. Without going 

 into the general question or giving all the reasons 

 on which this conclusion is based, it may be men- 



