52 DACE CAUGHT WITH SPINNING-BAIT. [PART I. 
look at the bread which I offered them, being 
‘doubtless gorged with Carp-spawn. I have indeed 
not unfrequently detected them apparently in the 
very act, observing them at intervals dashing ra- 
pidly about, close in the wake of Carp which were 
engaged in spawning. But if Roach do, as I think 
there can be no doubt, thus make free with the 
spawn of Carp, yet I suspect they are useful to the 
parent fish in relieving them from water-lice, with 
which they are occasionally much infested. This 
suspicion is grounded on the fact that having seen 
Carp on the surface, with Roach swarming closely 
round them, and, on several occasions, by foul- 
hooking or otherwise, managed to take them from 
out of the middle of such company, I invariably 
found them to be suffering from these parasites. 
When in this state they rapidly lose condition, 
and sometimes become so poor and weak that they 
will suffer themselves to be taken out of the water 
with the hand. 
I know of two instances where Dace have 
been caught with a spinning-bait, not hooked 
foul, but fairly in the mouth. One of these 
was by Mr Gould, the fishing-tackle maker, in 
the Colne: the other by a brother of mine in 
a piece of water in Hampshire; the bait in the 
