THE ROACH 129 



the eyes of a favourite toast. Mr. Keene gives it as yellow, 

 Mr. Seeley as silvery, while the latest authority, Mr. C. H. 

 Wheeley, declares it is golden-red. Not having a specimen 

 at hand to decide upon, I will not venture an opinion where 

 high authorities are so much at variance, 



Unhke the Salmonid^y which part with their lustre at the 

 approach of the spawning season, the roach, in common with 

 other cyprinoid fish, increases in beauty at that time. It 

 seldom exceeds 2 lb. in weight. Francis Francis regarded 

 roach of that weight as mythical ; and Frank Buckland, 

 another practised roach-angler, pronounced all roach above 

 that weight to be hybrids with the bream. Such hybrids, which 

 occur pretty frequently both in England and Ireland, have 

 sometimes received specific distinction, as the Pomeranian bream 

 [Abramis Leuckartii)^ but the spurious origin of this fish is now 

 pretty generally recognised. It may be distinguished at once 

 from the roach by its whitish fins, and from its other parent 

 by the tail fin, which is evenly lobed, and by the anal fin, 

 which contains only from twelve to fourteen rays, instead of 

 from twenty-six to thirty-one, as in that of the true bream. 



Notwithstanding the value to be attached to the opinion 

 of such past masters as Messrs. Francis and Buckland, I 

 possess recent and unimpeachable evidence of true roach 

 exceeding 2 lb. in weight. For instance, in October, 1902, the 

 Rev. H. G. Veitch caught two roach, which were weighed by 

 Mr. R. B. Marston, editor of the Fishing Gazette, and proved to 

 be respectively 1 lb. c,^ oz. and 2 lb. 4|- oz. These fish were 

 forwarded to Mr. Boulenger, for the ichthyological collection 

 of the British Museum, who pronounced them to be " splendid 

 specimens " of roach. A few days later the same angler for- 

 warded two more, each weighing 2j lb. These fish were taken 

 when netting coarse fish out of trout and grayling water near 

 Salisbury. Mr. W. G. Fletcher took a roach with gentle in the 

 Kennet, weighing 2 lb. i^h oz., which was exhibited on October 

 28th, 1902, at the weekly meeting of the Piscatorial Society. 



9 



