POMERANIAN BREAM. 



41 



Bream ; and Bloch reports that the fishermen are greatly 

 pleased when they take this fish in their nets : they have 

 learned by experience that when this Bream appears they 

 shall have a successful fishery : they believe that the other 

 Bream follow this fish, and the name they have accordingly 

 bestowed upon it in that country signifies guide or conductor. 

 Except in Bloch I do not find this species included in either 

 of the works I possess, or have yet gained access to, which 

 treat of the fresh-water fishes of the different countries of the 

 continent of Europe. 



The specimen of this fish from Dagenham, from which the 

 following description was taken, measured fifteen inches in 

 length, of which the head was three inches, or, compared to 

 the whole length of the fish, as one to five ; the depth of the 

 body a little in advance of the line of the first ray of the dor- 

 sal fin, where the body is deepest, five inches, or one third of 

 the whole length ; the thickness of the body two inches and 

 a half, equal to half the depth, or one sixth of the whole 

 length ; the head is rather small and pointed, the mouth is 

 also small ; the diameter of the eye about one fifth of the 

 length of the head, the iris silvery and about the same 

 breadth as the pupil ; the operculum rather large and angu- 

 lar; the pectoral fin rather small; half the ventral fin, in 

 advance of a vertical line falling from the origin of the first 

 dorsal fin ray ; the dorsal fin commences exactly half way be- 

 tween the point of the nose and the end of the caudal fin ; 

 but the base of the dorsal fin in this fish is longer than the 

 base of the same fin in either of our other species of Bream ; 

 the anal fin is shorter than that of the shortest of the other 

 Bream, and has three rays less ; it is also less falcate in form, 

 or more equal in the length of its rays ; the tail in shape at 

 its posterior edge rather lunate, the outer rays elongated ; the 

 formula of the fin rays is 



D. 12 : P. 17 : V. 9 : A. 19 ; C. 19 : Veitebrjc 41. 



