200 PHYSOSTOMI. 



scales of tlie roacli and dace was said to be tte best, but that from tbe bleak in 

 greater request. So great was tbe demand formerly at particular times tbat the 

 price of a quart measure of fish scales has varied from one guinea to five. Of late 

 years the silvery pigment lining the air-bladder of the Argentine has superseded 

 to a great extent the colouring substance from fish-scales. Blanchard gives as an 

 estimate of the value of these fishes taken in the Moselle in 1860 at 5000 francs. 



As food. — Izaak Walton terms it excellent meat, others liken it to sprats ; while 

 it has been recommended marinated. Some who have failed to appreciate the 

 bleak, assume that it is neither worth cooking nor eating, that its taste is muddy, 

 while it is too large to employ as whitebait, and too small to afford a good 

 mouthful. It dies quickly, and its flesh soon decomposes. 



Habitat. — Generally found in rivers which contain roach and dace, and in 

 Europe north of the Alps. 



Absent from Scotland and Ireland. Is a freshwater resident in Yorkshire, 

 common in the lower waters of the Tees, Leven, and of the Central Plain ; also 

 in the Hull (Yorkshire Vertebrata) ; very abundant in ditches at North Wootton, 

 in Norfolk, the Ouse, below Denver sluice, at low water (Lowe) ; the Thames, 

 certainly as high as Oxford, the Lea, and New River, the Severn, and many of our 

 rivers. 



Its common size is up to 5 or 6 inches. Jenyns mentions specimens up to 

 8 inches. The figure, life size, is from one taken in the Thames. 



