THE ROACH. 113 



seem somewhat fond. Particularly do they affect it at the period referred 

 to. I have taken large quantities of roach with it at the weirs on 

 the Thames during early season. 



The size which roach attain is debateable. Occasionally we get an 

 authenticated account of one from the Thames of 21b. weight, but seldom 

 over that, and the reports of takes of big roach reaching this weight, 

 and of number legion, which arise from the hazy atmosphere of exagger- 

 ation surrounding Thames fishermen from time to time, may be looked 

 upon, if not with disbelief, certainly with suspicion. A friend of mine, 

 who is eighty years of age, and has been a bottom fisher for sixty-five years, 

 strengthens me in the opinion that in England a 21b. roach is a rarity. 

 He assures me he has never taken more than five such fish throughout 

 his long experience. In some northern continental rivers, however, this 

 size, we are told, is more common. The probable limit of the age of 

 the roach is about thirty years. The haunts of the roach vary with 

 the season and size of the fish. During the high temperature of mid- 

 summer he is chiefly to be found contiguous to the leafy shade of water 

 lilies and other broad-leaved weeds, and can be drawn forth by judicious 

 ground baiting to any "swim" within sight. Roach are, then, of all 

 sizes in their communities, and, whilst your friend is landing a pound fish, 

 you, in the same punt, may be playing a feeble "sprat" -like individual. 

 As the season wears on, however, the natural domestic instincts return, 

 and the very large fish seek the deep still holes where abound barbel, large 

 perch, large dace, large chub, and, perchance trout thence only to be 

 drawn by the invitations of a cmsme on which large fish of every 

 species of the Cyprinidce at least seem, with but trifling exceptions, to 

 agree. But of this more farther on. 



As winter approaches and the equinoctials blow, the land floods rise, 

 transforming all covert but that in the deeps ; then it is that the roach 

 en masse here and there occupy dainty corners and selected nooks. The 

 roach fisherman knows how to take advantage of the altered circum- 

 stances of his quarry, and frequently from such spots the whole shoal 

 may, as in the case of perch, be drawn. 



The food of the roach is chiefly composed of water insects. A 

 microscopical examination of the contents of the stomachs of some 

 hundreds of roach at various seasons has convinced me that the whol? 

 group of the Crustacea forms the principal means of subsistence ; whilst 

 as far as I know, unlike any other fish, they persistently search aftei 

 and consume not only some of the higher order of vegetation, such as 

 the Conferva rivualis, but the lowest, such as the Hydra vulgwris and 

 Volvox globator, if, indeed, either of these or both is animal or vegetable. 

 Of course, in this description of their food I refer to roach in a 



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