284 NOTES ON FISH AND FISHING. 



the fish happily, or indeed fairly, named ; for though he 

 certainly haa a large head, it is not so abnormally large as 

 to justify this feature being fixed upon to give him a dis- 

 tinctive appellation. A small chub is so like a dace (one. 

 of the most symmetrical fish that swims) that unless one 

 knows ichthyologically the different marking of the fins, it 

 is very difficult to distinguish one from the other; and 

 when he has grown to full chubhood his head, though 

 large, does not seem much, if at all, out of proportion to 

 his body. Take a five-inch chub and a five-inch dace in 

 your hand, or contemplate a " Cut " of chub and dace, 

 and you will not notice any great difference as to the 

 proportionate size of their heads. The chub has been 

 sometimes called " The large^headed Dace ; " but I ques- 

 tion the propriety of the nomenclature. I know there is 

 a variety of opinion as to the claims of the chub to be a 

 good-looking fish. The learned Dr. Badham, to whom I 

 have so often referred in my notes, only devotes three 

 lines to this fish, and speaks with apparent contempt of 

 his "obese body, empty head, and inflated face," and 

 suggests that these " fishy " characteristics " helped the 

 Stratford bard to the simile " contained in the following 

 lines : — 



" I never saw a fool lean ; the chub-faced fop 

 Shines sleek with full-cramm'd fat of happiness." 



Now I shall venture to say that, in my opinion, Dr. 

 Badham is as unkind towards the personal appearance of 

 our chub as he is certainly incorrect in attributing his 

 quotation to the " Stratford bard/' for it was not Shake- 

 speare who wrote the lines, but Marston, the dramatist, 

 and friend of Ben Jonson, in his Antonio's Revenge. 



