THE BREAM. 97 



I have, myself, nevertheless, caught many over 41b., and one, captured 

 in November, 1877, scaled 71b., which, by the bye, lived no less than ten 

 hours out of its native element. The tenacity of life, indeed, in the 

 bream has been remarked on many occasions. Gesner observes that 

 it may be transported to a great distance, if wrapped in snow, and a 

 piece of bread, steeped in alcohol, be placed in its mouth. This latter 

 treatment, it may be noted, has evidently been imitated from that to 

 which the genus homo ordinarily subjects himself during long journeys 

 amid snow or general surrounding discomfort. 



The bream, or breme, has been both praised and abused. That fair 

 angler-author, Dame Julyana Berners, the Prioress of St. Albans, says 

 it is a "noble fysshe and a deynteous." Chaucer also refers to it 

 as follows : 



Fall many a partrich had hee on mewe. 

 And many a brome and many a luce in stewe. 



It is certain it was esteemed, for Sir W. Drysdale, writing in 1419, says 

 that at that date a single fish was worth twenty pence, but, when a 

 labourer found one, only sixpence was paid. He also speaks of a certain 

 large "breme" pie which was sent from Warwickshire to a distant part 

 of Yorkshire at a cost of 16s., which included two men three days in 

 catching the fish, and an amount expended for "flower and spices." 

 Nillson also says that in Sweden it was the custom to forbid the ringing 

 of the church bells during their swarming season, lest the sound should 

 alarm them. On the other hand, nearly all modern authors stigmatise 

 the bream as coarse, ugly, producing little sport, and unfit to eat. Hear 

 the words of Blakey : "The bream is a great, flat, coarse, ugly fish, 

 strong in the water, but utterly detestable on the table ; " and, further, 

 " it sometimes attains a large size; it is then very much like a pair of 

 bellows in shape, and much the same in flavour." How Mr. Robert 

 Blakey knew what a " bellows" tasted like I cannot say, unless, indeed, 

 he had tried it. 



Gastronomically I consider this fish of some little worth, and I have 

 known it to be by no means despisable when filleted and fried in oil. 

 Old Walton quotes a French proverb to the effect that " He who hath 

 breams in his pond can make his friends welcome." However this be, 

 the fish is not unfit for food ; on the contrary, I am glad to say that a 

 recipe of Mr. Greville Fennell, given in the Standard some time ago, 

 has rendered bream to me very toothsome, more so, indeed, than I had 

 anticipated. This is what that learned ichthyophagist says : " Of these 

 fish (bream) English waters know two sorts the golden and the silver. 

 The former is a highly-prized fish on the Trent and some other rivers 

 as being equal in parts to the John Dory, and requires little previous 



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