216 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [voL. 48 
(thus the Century Dictionary indicates) small. cf. me. Menuse, 
small fish.” More facts are wanted. 
Many fishes, really very close to the Leuciscines but with a longer 
anal fin, have been segregated from the latter because of that char- 
acter and named the Abramidines. Different as are the extremes 
of the two groups, they grade into each other. 
The Bream (Abramis brama) is characterized as well by its deep 
and compressed body as by the long anal fin. It is a fish of consid- 
erable size and one recorded by Buckland measured two feet two 
inches in length and weighed nearly twelve (11$) pounds. The 
name is cognate with the French Bréme, while the German name is 
Brachsen or Blei. There are a number of species in the continental 
waters more or less related to the bream. The nearest relation to 
it in America is the common silver fish or golden shiner (Abrams 
(or Notemigonus) chrysoleucas). 
It spawns in June about Paris and the male and female keep on 
the surface of the water at spawning time, moving and rubbing 
themselves one against the other. They then proceed to the emis- 
sion and fecundation of eggs, which burst out in all directions and 
are disseminated on all sides. 
Such are the fishes truly entitled to the names that have been used 
for them. ‘The fishes themselves are sufficiently common and con- 
spicuous to become to some extent familiar to the sport-loving 
Englishmen, and the early emigrants from England took the names 
with them to the new world; the old names were given to the new 
fishes found in their adopted homes. Often they were very much 
misapplied and the American species called by the familiar names 
are frequently extremely different. Carp was appropriated for a 
Catostomid (Carpiodes) ; roach was devolved on a sunfish (Ewpo- 
motis gibbosus) which is more like the English perch; chub was 
used for a relative of the sunfish (black-bass) in one colony and in 
another for a kind of sucker which belongs to a family (Catas- 
tomids) not found at all in England; minnow is largely used for 
small species of an unrelated family (Peeciliids) ; tench was attached 
in Carolina to the salt-water labrid now generally known as the 
tautog or blackfish (Tautoga onitis) ; barbel was applied in some 
regions to the American suckers (Catostomus). None of the fishes 
so misnamed belong to or very near the family of the real owners of 
the names. 
Fewer of such names were transferred to Australian fishes, mostly 
no doubt on account of the poverty of the fresh-water fauna of the 
southern continent. Bream, however, is given to half a dozen 
