TINCA VULGARIS. 191 



water its colours are dull ; but when found in clear water the fish is often 

 brilliant. Its common tint is a dark olive-green, shading- into black, with a 

 remarkable transparent brassy glitter. The colour is paler on the sides, 

 and on the belly becomes greyish-white. The fins are colourless, reddish- 

 brown, or violet, their colours, like those of the fish, varying with the condi- 

 tions of existence. The commonest type is the brightly-coloured one with the 

 dull golden glimmer; but the so-called Golden Tench, Tinea aurata, of Cuvier, 

 has a pale golden hue, with red lips, flesh-coloured fins, and dark spots 

 on the body. This variety is one of the most beautiful of European fishes. 

 The eye has a golden circle to a red or brown iris. 



The males are more brightly-coloured than the females. Like the young 

 fish they have the head larger, the fore part of the back move arched, and all 

 the fins except the caudal more strongly developed. This character is most 

 marked in the ventral fin. 



The Tench reaches a length of one foot and a half, and, in Carp ponds in 

 Germany, often grows to a weight of six, and, occasionally, eight pounds, 

 but south of the Alps a weight of twelve pounds is recorded, as from Lago 

 Maggiore ; but in rivers it is rarely heavier than three pounds. 



It grows quickly, attaining a quarter of a pound weight in the first year, 

 three quarters of a pound in the second, and three pounds in the third. 

 It lives for six or seven years. Yarrell, quoting from Daniel's " Rural Sports," 

 tells of a Tench which measured thirty-three inches in length from the eye 

 to the caudal fork, weighed eleven pounds nine ounces, and had grown into a 

 hole among the roots of trees so that escape was impossible. 



The Tench is singularly tenacious of life, and in the eastern parts of 

 England, as at Peterborough, it is often brought to market and exhibited for 

 sale, and if not sold put back again into water. It is said to live an entire 

 day out of its element, and can exist in water which contains the minutest 

 quantity of oxygen gas, and may exist during summer in the dried-up mud of 

 ponds. 



Professor Canestrini has described a singular arrangement of the bones and 

 nmscles attached to the base of the ventral fins in the male Tench, by which 

 the abdomen may be drawn inward and upward. He regards this arrangement 

 as aiding in the discharge of the ripe milt, a view which Fatio supports by 

 remarking that the stones and hard substances against which many fishes rub 

 themselves in the breeding season are absent from the muddy habitat which 

 the Tench delights in. In ponds and marshes the fish spawns earlier in the 

 year than when inhabiting lakes and rivers. And it is asserted that the old 

 females spawn earlier than the younger ones. The spawning season lasts from 

 May to Aiigust, and the eggs are deposited near the banks. The fish assemble 



