96 THE PKACTICAL FISHERMAN. 



white bream being of a sheeny white always, more like a bleak in hue 

 than any other fish ; the carp-bream is always more or less coloured. 

 Secondly, the throat teeth of the white bream are in two rows on each 

 side, numbering two and five respectively. The carp-bream has only one 

 row on each side, numbering five. Thirdly, comparison of scales will 

 always decide. The carp-bream in proportion does not form nearly 

 so large a scale as the bream- flat ; indeed, it is not quite half as large, 

 and its outline on one side generally slopes away at an acute angle. 



The native countries of the ordinary bream seem to have been 

 central Europe, as well as the north, Finland, and Scandinavia. It is 

 a quiet, sluggish sort of creature, thriving also well in lakes. 



Nillson says it is found in Sweden and northern Norway, where the 

 Isotes lacrusti weed grows, and that as many as 40,000 have been taken 

 at one haul. Truly, a miraculous draught of fishes ! Both Ireland and 

 the Principality afford them the former at Lough Erne, Mackenn, 

 Fermanagh, and Cavan, and the latter in nearly all the deep tarns and 

 still rock pools. Leland quaintly says : "In Wales, not far from 

 Breckenok, in Blin Senathin, which is in bredth a mile and two miles of 

 length, and where as it is depest, thirteen fadom, it berith as the 

 principall fisch a great numbre of Bremes, and they appeare in May in 

 mighte sculles, so that sumtime they breke large nettes, and ons frayed 

 appeareth not in the brym of the water that yere againe." 



This movement here spoken of probably is a general migratory 

 rush preliminary to spawning, somewhat similar to that of the roach 

 or tench at about the same season. Chiefly, however, the spawning 

 takes place in June or July not May amongst rushes and weeds, 

 each female fish accompanied by three or four males. Like the roach, at 

 this critical season a peculiar roughness is found on the scales, and the 

 fish has the appearance of being afflicted with measles. As many as 

 137,000 eggs have been estimated in the ovarium of a single female ; no 

 wonder, therefore, that some parts of the river Thames, as, for example, 

 at Chertsey and Walton, keep up an apparently unfailing supply of bream. 



The bream grows rapidly in favourable water, and often attains a 

 great size in such rivers, for instance, as the Ouse and the Oundle. 

 Blakey asserts that it has been known to attain the enormous weight 

 of 20lb.|in the north of Europe, and Bailey, in his " Angler's Instructor," 

 mentions one of 171b. taken from the Trent. It is on reliable record 

 that out of a lake in Sweden in 1749 there were taken at a single draught 

 5000 bream, weighing in the aggregate no less than 18,0001b., this, of 

 course, bearing an average of 31b. apiece, which, bearing in mind the 

 immense number, 5000, is very remarkable. 



In English rivers, however, such weights are generally unapproached 



