THE BREAM. 123 



CHAPTEE YIII. 



THE BREAM. 



The bream is another distinguished member of the carp tribe, 

 distinguished because he is of rather a peculiar shape, being 

 nearly as broad as he is long. His back stands up a good 

 height, and his belly bows round to a good depth. Indeed, 

 I have a short cutting before me from a journal in which a 

 writer describes a bream as being like a pair of bellows, " the 

 handles forming the head and the spout the tail ;" my author, 

 however, spoils his remark by adding, "they are like a pair of 

 bellows in flavour." Well, I know they are not very good 

 as an edible, but like a pair of bellows ! The scientific name 

 of the bream is Gyprinus Brama. There are three sorts of 

 bream in English waters, but the most common are the carp 

 bream or golden bream, and the white bream or silver bream 

 called by some bream flats. The carp bream is the larger of 

 the two sorts, and is not a very handsome fish, it can easily 

 be recognized by any tyro, being very thin and also wonder- 

 fully broad. The fins are of a very dark colour, his head is 

 not out of the way large, and he has rather a small mouth, 

 when we consider the size of him ; his skin is very slimy in 

 a general way, but I remember taking two or three two-pound 

 fish, and they were as clean as a dace. This was in Septem- 

 ber, and I hooked them in a slight shallow stream. They 

 were very beautiful on the back, looking as though they were 

 shot with mother-o'-pearl and gold, while their bellies were 

 silvery white, the scales on their sides were smooth, round, 



