370 



CYPRINID.*:. 



was found at the bottom of the vessel. When thus pro- 

 duced, small glass tubes were dipped in, and the pigment 

 injected into thin blown hollow glass beads of various forms 

 and sizes. These were then spread on sieves, and dried in a 

 current of air. If greater weight and firmness were required,* 

 a further injection of wax was necessary. Of this pigment, 

 that obtained from the scales of Roach and Dace was the 

 least valuable ; that from the Bleak was in much greater 

 request ; but the Whitebait afforded the most delicate and 

 beautiful silver, and obtained the highest price, partly from 

 the prohibitory regulations affecting the capture of this 

 little fish, the difficulty of transmission, and rapid decompo- 

 sition. 



This art of forming artificial pearls is said to have been 

 first practised by the French. Dr. Lister, in his Journey to 

 Paris, says, that when he was in that city, a manufacturer 

 used in one winter thirty hampers of Bleak. Our term 

 Bleak, or Blick, according to Merrett, which has reference 

 to the whiteness of the fish, is derived from a Northern 

 word, which signifies to bleach or whiten. 



In a specimen seven inches long, the length of the head 

 compared to the length of the head and body, without in- 

 cluding the caudal rays, was as two to nine ; the depth of 

 the body compared in the same way was as one to four : but 

 in a younger male specimen of five inches long, the depth of 

 the body was only equal to the length of the head ; and both 

 measurements, therefore, were as two to nine. In the large 

 specimen, the body was Dace-like in form and general ap- 

 pearance, but immediately distinguishable by the backward 

 position of the dorsal fin, and the greater length of the 

 base of the anal fin ; the body elongated, the abdominal line 

 rather more convex than the line of the back ; the nose 

 pointed ; the under jaw the longest ; the eye rather large : 



