THE BLEAK. 183 



culture of this fish assumes considerable importance, I am informed 

 that a rude sort of fish culture is resorted to. Artificial sandbanks 

 and hurdles are placed conveniently in protected spots for the bleak 

 to spawn on, and it is conceivable that even this primitive measure 

 greatly facilitates the operations of the parent fish and tends to pre- 

 serve them. As with all the rest of the carp family, so is it with 

 these little fishes at the spawning season. Its critical processes 

 develop disorders in bleak, and often bring about the death of an 

 otherwise apparently healthy fish. Bleak are particularly prone to the 

 larval tapeworm before spoken of, and the agonised spasmodic struggles 

 of an occasional fish are at this timp frequently to be seen. Nor is 

 this form of malady confined to the spawning season. On bright 

 clear days it is by no means uncommon to observe a bleak glancing 

 and flashing through the water, apparently beside itself for some cause 

 or other. Thames fishermen are credited with terming such sufferers 

 "mad bleaks." Sufferers they surely are, in my opinion, from the fact 

 that on opening these "mad" fish I never yet found one without one or 

 more tapeworms to account for its eccentric evolutions. This should be 

 good ground for the inference drawn. The conjecture has been hazarded 

 that these glancing, flashing movements are consequent on a desire 

 in the fish to " clean " itself after spawning. I am inclined myself, 

 however, to the former supposition. The size of the bleak rarely 

 exceeds 9in. 



Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the life-history of the bleak 

 is the fact that it has been pressed into the service of the great 

 Moloch Fashion. M. Meniere, in the "Journal of Applied Sciences," 

 gives the whole history of the employment of bleak in the manufacture 

 of artificial pearls. It appears that in the seventeenth century an in- 

 genious person (M. Jaquin) most successfully imitated pearls by means 

 of the "Oriental Essence," which was a name given to an oily product 

 of the scales of the fish to keep its origin secret. The name now given 

 to this product is guanine. Mr. Pennell, in the ' ' Angler Naturalist, ' ' 

 says : "So great at one time was the demand, when the fashion of wearing 

 imitation pearls was at its height, that the price of a quart measure of 

 scales varied from one guinea to five. At one factory alone in Paris, 

 10,000 pearls were issued per week ; and, when it is considered that 

 each pound of scales costs the lives of 4000 fish, and that this pound 

 only produced 4oz. of pigment, some estimate of the destruction effected 

 amongst the bleak may be formed. The Thames fishermen gave them- 

 selves no trouble beyond stripping off these valuable appendages, throw- 

 ing away the fish when scaled. Eoach and dace an d some other fishes 

 also furnished a colouring substance, though of inferior quality, the 



