130 FRESH-WATER AQUARIA. 



a large surface of water in proportion to its size, and wMcli 

 also possesses plenty of freely-growing plants. The natural 

 food of the Carp-Bream is worms, insects, and the tender 

 parts of water-weeds. It is a hearty eater. In the aquarium 

 it wiE feed upon vermicelli. Personally, I have a great regard 

 for the Carp-Bream ; not because it is a very good fish for the 

 aquarium, for it is not, but because it used to provide me 

 with such famous sport when I was a boy. The usual weight 

 of this fish when fuU grown is from 41b. to 71b., but some- 

 times it has been taken weighing upwards of 141b. The late 

 Mr. Frank Buckland mentions a Carp-Bream which weighed 

 llflb., measured 2ft. 2in. in length, and which a gentleman 

 asserted that he had placed in the pond in which it was 

 caught fifty years before. Upon the Continent the Carp- 

 Bream is more highly esteemed as food than in this country; 

 but I believe that in some of our large towns great, numbers 

 of them are eaten during Lent and the Hebrew Passover. 

 These fish are found in many of the rivers, lakes, and canals 

 of both England and Ireland. They spawn during May, the 

 eggs of a single fish sometimes numbering more than 120,000. 

 The body of the Carp-Bream is deep, flat, and much curved 

 above and below. The lateral line is rather low down. The 

 mouth is small, toothless, and without barbels; the snout is 

 blunt; the scales are rough and have a yellow tinge, which 

 becomes a brown tinge with age; the pectoral and ventral 

 fins are tinged with red, and the other fins are slightly brown; 

 the dorsal fin is small, and the anal fin large; the tail is 

 deeply forked. 



The White Bream, or Bream-fiat {Abramis hlicca), is more 

 difficult to keep alive in the aquarium than the carp-bream. 

 It is a pretty fish, its silvery and glittering scales showing ofE 

 well in the tank. It is very subject to fungus, but in a well- 

 arranged and well-cared-for aquarium it will live in health, and 

 will certainly be an ornament there. The tank in which it is 

 placed must have been some time established, or this fish wUl 

 not do well — at least, such has been my experience. There 

 will of course be little or no difficulty in keeping the White 

 Bream in an aquarium in which a fountain is continually 



