CH UB — DA CE —MINNO W 



553 



Minnow. 



Ill habits dace resemble roach, but are quicker of sight and hearing and swifter in 

 movement. They are gregarious, though a few solitary individuals have been 

 observed watching for small water-insects and darting on them as they came 

 within range. Groundbait is wasted on the dace, which is a surface-feeding fish. 

 Many are caught by the artificial fly, as dace feed mainly on insects and their larvae, 

 often leaping out of the water to capture them. 



The minnow (L. phoxinus) is abundant throughout the European 

 area, and in some localities attains a length of 7 inches, especially 

 in streams with gravelly bottoms, but is small and scarce in most limestone 

 districts, and is never found in any great depth of water. Generally a silvery fish, 

 it assumes distinct hues, ranging from carmine and crimson to every shade of blue 

 and green ; at times it is as rich in colouring as the stickleback, and at the 

 spawning period phos- 

 phorescent. Its colours 

 change according to 

 environment, as was 

 shown by an experiment 

 made by Mr. Keene, 

 who took five ordinary : 

 gallipots and painted 

 the interiors of four as 

 follows : black, red, 

 blue, and yellow ; the 

 fifth remained un- 

 touched, and was, of 

 course, white. The 

 jars were placed in a 

 row in equal light — ~ 



not sunlight, but light 

 through a frosted pane. X.TT^,^ 

 When the pots had 

 been filled equally with minnow. 



water from a dark 



bait-cistern, five strong, lively minnows were severally placed in each re- 

 ceptacle. The colour of each at this time was uniformly dark olive on the back. 

 In the course of two hours each specimen presented a different colour, when all 

 were replaced in a black painted can. The fish in the black jar remained un- 

 affected, the one in the red was somewhat lighter and clearly mottled, that in the 

 blue rather of a browner tint, that in the yellow of a yellowish dirty-brown hue, 

 and that in the white almost straw-colour. When replaced during the same and 

 ensuing day in the pots in a different order, they pi-esented, after various changes, 

 almost immediate results distinctly curious. The experiment led him to believe 

 that the colouring matter was exceedingly sensitive. Small as they are, minnows 

 are excellent as food fish. Izaak Walton made "minnow tailzies "of these fish, and 

 they appear to have been the original whitebait, since at William of Wykeham's 

 dinner to the King and Queen at Winchester on the 16th of September 1394 



VOL. I. 23 



