204 CYPKINID^. 



THE AMERICAN HOACH. 



Leuciscus Urtilus ? 



The American E/Oach is a pretty, lively little fish, common to 

 most of tlie ponds and small running streams of the Middle and 

 Northern States, and is closely analogous to the Em'opean fish 

 of the same name, although it never approaches it in size. In 

 England the Roach has been taken up to the weight of five 

 pounds ; in the United States it rarely exceeds five or six inches 

 in length, and together with its congeners, the Chub and Dace, 

 as they are generally termed, though none of them identical 

 with the European species, are seldom taken except by 

 school-boys, and never put on the table except in remote 

 country districts, where sea-fish and the better inland varieties 

 being unknown, anything will pass muster, in this line, as 

 dainties. 



The Roach is readily distinguished by his blood-red irides, and 

 the ruddy tinge which borders his pectoral, ventral, and anal 

 fins. His head is thick and obtuse at the snout, the labials 

 coarse and fleshy. The eye large, and situated midway between 

 the tip of the snout and the posterior margin of the gill- covers. 

 The gill-covers are moderately curved, forming an irregular 

 semicircle. The pectoral fin has its origin immediately behind 

 the edge of the sub-operculum. The origin of the dorsal is 

 midway between the snout and origin of the caudal fin, and the 

 ventrals vertically imder it. The caudal fin is powerful and 

 lunated. The dorsal rays are ten in number; the pectoral 



