278 NOTES ON FISH AND FISHING. 



ing time, which extends through June and July, according 

 to the season and nature of the water, each female is 

 attended by three or four males ; and thus the order of 

 things which obtains in the Mormon " Church " (save the 

 mark !) is reversed among the bream community. 



And what shall I say of the bream gastronomically ? I 

 shall say, or rather beg it to be understood that I say, all 

 I have said or implied of barbel, carp, and tench, as an 

 opsophagist. According to my taste, the bream is equally 

 bad as, or more Hibernico, "equally worse," than the 

 coarse fish just named. I am aware, however, that the 

 bream has his apologists, and even partisans. The oft- 

 quoted Juliana Berners says that " the breme is a noble 

 fysshe and a deynteous." We read in Chaucer, commen- 

 datory, as it would seem, of the fowl and fish in store for 

 eating — 



" JFull many a fair partrich had hee on mewe, 

 And many a brome, and many a luce in stewe." 



There is a French proverb, too, which says, " Qui a 

 breme peut bramer ses amis," which T suppose is the same 

 as that mentioned by old Izaak Walton in these words (as 

 far as I recollect) : " He that hath bream in his pond hath 

 always a welcome for his guest." The great Cuvier goes 

 as far as to say that the bream is a " moderately good " 

 fish, and I believe the French even at the present day 

 hold it in some degree of estimation, while some connois- 

 seurs have ventured to declare for " a carp's head, a 

 bream's middle, and a pike's tail," though, after all, this 

 dictum may be taken rather as a relative comparison of 

 the different sections of poor fish than as an absolute com- 

 mendation of any. I will have no part of him, head, tail, 



