SECTION IV. 



THE BLEAK AND THE MINNOW. 



The Bleak and the Minnow. 



These two little fish are chiefly used as bait for other fish, though 

 they will bite very freely in their own proper persons, and are 

 frequently taken in that way to be again angled with to entrap 

 their betters. 



The bleak is a pretty little fish resembling a dace, but the 

 colours are much more brilliant being of a bluish cast on the back, 

 and the cheeks and sides of the most shining silvery white. It is 

 very lively in its motions, rising eagerly at the small gnats that are 

 playing on the surface, and may be taken with any small artificial fly, 

 as also with a paternoster line, like that used in catching smelts. 

 Its general haunts are gravelly shallows in a moderate stream. The 

 usual spawning time is May. These fish are infested with a kind 

 of intestinal worm that causes them great suffering, occasioning them 

 to swim about in an agitated manner, sometimes coming to the 

 surface, and darting onwards apparently quivering with agony, 

 on their sides, which has obtained them the name of mad bleak. 

 The scales of the bleak are, with those of the roach and dace and 

 other white fish, used in the manufacture of artificial pearls, and 

 of these the scales of the bleak are esteemed more highly than 

 those of any other fishes, that they are fished for the value of 

 their scales alone; the fishermen after stripping off their scales 

 recommitting them to the stream, though it seems doubtful whe- 

 ther many can survive this rough usage. 



