THE BLEAK ' 155 



length or a pound in weight. It is a worthless fish, for which 

 nobody has ever been heard to say a good word. It is needless, 

 therefore, to refer to the methods of angling for " tin-plates," 

 as fishermen call them, except to say that they are the same as 

 for bream. In habits, and food also, the two fish are precisely 

 similar, the breamflats bringing -themselves prominently under 

 notice in May, when they gather in shallow water, especially 

 among bulrushes, and deposit their spawn and milt in riotous 

 assemblage. 



The breams are represented in North America by several 

 species, resembling the European breams, but generally having 

 fewer rays in the anal fin. As already mentioned, the so-called 

 Pomeranian bream {j^Ab rami dop sis Leuckartii of Von Siebold) 

 has been pretty well ascertained to be a fertile hybrid between 

 the roach and the bream. It has been described by Giinther 

 as " a roach-like modification of the bream, or a bream-like 

 modification of the roach." It is to be noted that the 

 sea-breams {Sparid^) are not akin to the fresh-water breams, 

 but form the fourth family of a totally different order — that 

 of Acanthopterygiiy or Spiny-finned Fishes. 



The Bleak {iAlburnus lucidus) 



Teeth. 

 Pharyngeal only, in two rows, 

 hooked. 



Fins. 

 Dorsal : 10 or 11 rays. 

 Anal : 18 to 23 rays. 

 Ventral : 9 or 10 rays. 

 Pectoral : 15 to 17 rays. 

 Caudal : 19 rays. 



Sixteen hundred years ago Ausonius, describing waterside 

 life on the Moselle, noticed the sport which schoolboys found 

 in catching bleak. The relations between boys and bleak 

 remain unchanged ; many a salmon-fisher, hardly to be satisfied 

 now with less than a thirty-pounder in the full sweep of a 

 Norwegian torrent, may trace his craftsmanship to its source 



