PRACTICAL LESSONS IN THE GENTLE CRAFT. 519 



to the learner as the one under notice, for during the 

 spring and summer months the dace rises greedily at small 

 flies and insects of various kinds, and is besides so brave 

 and dashing in his attempts to escape when hooked upon 

 fine tackle, that he gets the pupil's hand well in for 

 higher and nobler game. He is an extremely handsome 

 fish, and elegantly shaped, the head small, with the irides 

 of the eyes a pale yellow, the body lengthy and the tail 

 well forked ; the scales are much smaller than those of the 

 roach, and have a brilliant silvery gloss predominating over 

 a cast of yellowish green ; the back is of a dusky green 

 tint, the belly white, the ventral, anal and caudal fins 

 of a pale reddish hue. In the Thames they are seldom 

 taken of any great size, but in the Lea, and particularly 

 above Ware and Hertford, they run much larger ; while 

 in the Lark and Linnet the former a tributary of the 

 Ouse, of Suffolk and Cambridge, the latter another 

 tributary stream joining the Lark near Bury it is said 

 that they attain a pound or more in weight. Personally, 

 however, I have never seen anything approaching this size, 

 and shall be inclined to take such statements cum grano, 

 although Pennant gives an account of one that weighed a 

 pound and a half, and Linnaeus says that it grows to a foot 

 and a half in some countries. The most likely localities in 

 which to find these fish is in the vicinity of rapid currents, 

 sharps and eddies ; the point of .junction between two 

 streams is another habitat, while mill-races and the tail of 

 a mill-run are nearly always sure finds, and here they will 

 work up among the sharpest streams, and in the froth 

 and foam of the most turbulent looking water. In cold 

 and stormy weather they leave their favourite gravelly 

 scours, and seek deeper and more subtle water, where the 

 bottom is marly or clayey in character, and here they are 



