SMALL FRY 

 his spawning dress. Tlie minnow's scales are very small and delicate, 

 and sometimes large patches of the skin are bare of scales. 



Frank Buckland, in his ** Natural History of British Fishes/' gives an 

 interesting account of the breeding of minnows in France, where they are 

 used as food for young trout, salmon, crayfish, etc. The fish can be caught 

 when they collect together on fine days in April and May, just before the 

 spawning commences, and then treated by pressing out the eggs and 

 milt, as in trout culture, or by collecting the small eggs, which can be 

 found adhering together, and to stones, in little masses in the shallow 

 streams after the fish have spawned; which they do with a great deal of 

 fuss and splashing. The collected eggs can be hatched out in ordinary 

 trout -egg hatching boxes, and the minnow fry form grand food for trout 

 fry. Old angling writers speak of a dish of minnows cooked like white- 

 bait, called a minnow tansy; I have tried it in Shropshire, but the little 

 fish had a slightly bitter taste which I did not care for — in Germany the 

 bitter taste is considered the chief attraction. 



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