330 NOTES ON FISH AND FISHING. 



boiled down to make a pint of mutton broth. Happily for 

 French and English bleak, a new fish was at length dis- 

 covered in the Tiber even better adapted than the ordinary- 

 bleak for this artificial pearl-making, and Rome secured the 

 monopoly of this industry, at least in its highest branches. 



It is hardly worth while to say much on fishing for 

 bleak, as few adult anglers care to fish for them. Suffice 

 it, then, to notice that the bleak, being a surface swimmer, 

 or almost so, may be taken with nearly any minute fly, 

 and best with a gentle or small piece of kid on the bend 

 of the hook, or with a gentle or scrap of worm about ten 

 to twenty inches under the surface. For the latter kind 

 of fishing a tiny float may be used, but it is not needed, 

 nor is shot on the gut. Moist bran is useful as ground- 

 bait to keep the fish together, but this is hardly required. 

 For his size he fights well when hooked. It is sad to 

 think that this delicate little fish revels in foul water, the 

 mouths of drains and sewers having a special attraction for 

 him. He has, however, to pay the penalty of his bad 

 taste, for, according to some naturalists, the tape-worm 

 from which he so often suffers is superinduced by filthy 

 water. The strange gyrations a bleak frequently is seen 

 to perform are the result of a kind of vertigo arising 

 from the presence of this intestinal parasite. Bleak thus 

 affected are called on the Thames side " mad bleak." 



Gastronomically I find that bleak have their admirers 

 among ancient and modern anglers. Old Izaak says 

 they are " excellent meat ; " Mr. Pennell that, " dressed 

 and eaten like whitebait, they make a very good 

 dish;" and Mr. Francis Francis, that they are "very 

 delicate eating when cooked in the way in which sprats 

 are cooked." Be gustibus, &c. For my own part, I hold 



