806 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
occurs in the River Helge, and of which we shall have 
more to say below, these spots, according Mr. Svens- 
son, Preparator at the Royal Museum, are very com- 
mon. To judge by their appearance in one stuffed 
specimen, however, they seem to be morbid symptoms, 
concretions of pigment on abraded scales or more or 
less injured fin-rays. 
The White Bream — the German Blicke or Glister, 
the Danish Flire, BJege , or BJaafinne, and the French 
Bordeliere a — has an extensive range in fresh water 
north of the Alps, from Ireland eastwards throughout 
Russia-in-Europe 6 . In Finland, according to Mela, it 
goes north to lat. 63° 40'. In Norway it has not been 
found. It is common in most of the lakes of South- 
ern Sweden and in the inner part of the Baltic island- 
belt. As it is a species generally despised, and while 
confounded by most fishermen with young Bream, goes 
by different names in most of the localities where it 
occurs and is known to be a distinct form, we are as 
yet unable to fix the limits of its range in Sweden, 
especially to the north. We know that it is common 
in the Malar Valley, Lake Wener, and the southern 
provinces. Nilsson found it in the Dal Elf at Soder- 
fors in 1829. Wistrom supplied Lilljeborg with in- 
formation of its occurrence in the fjords near Hudiks- 
vall (about 62° N. lat.), and Steffenburg of its pre- 
sence in the basin of the Dal Elf up to Lake Oje in 
Dalecarlia (61° N. lat.). According to Malm it is pretty 
common in Bohuslan, according to Nilsson common in 
Scania. It is known by many names, e. g. Bjdlke, 
Blecka, Bjorkfisk , Bjorkare , Kjcirta , Panka, Bldpanka, 
with several different dialectic pronunciations of these 
words. 
The White Bream thrives best in lakes and rivers 
with a clayey and sandy bottom overgrown with weeds. 
Early in spring it repairs to shallow and weedy shores, 
where it spawns periodically in June or even at the 
middle of May. In favourable weather each spawning 
lasts about three days, at longer or shorter intervals. 
The old fish spawn first, the young some time later. 
The roe is deposited on the weeds, to which it adheres, 
During the operation of spawning the fish plunge and 
splash about at the surface, where they are seldom seen 
on other occasions. The White Bream usually keeps 
to the bottom, sometimes swimming in mid water. 
Though shy and greatly afraid of noise at other times, 
it is tame and fearless during the spawning, when it 
may be caught with ease. 
It passes the whole summer in shallow water, and 
does not retire to the depths until autumn, when it de- 
scends to its winter-quarters. It is one of the most 
voracious Cyprinoids, feeding on weeds, insects, and 
worms, and biting so freely that it is a nuisance to the 
fisherman, for it often secures the bait without being 
hooked. It has therefore received the nickname of dtare 
(glutton). 
Though it thieves so greedily, and is always on 
the alert where there is anything to be got, it is al- 
ways lean. As it is also of small size, and the flesh 
very bony, it is never in request, being eaten only for 
want of better fish or by the poor. Like most of the 
Cyprinoids, it is very prolific — Bloch estimated the 
number of the eggs in a female weighing 117 grm. at 
about 108,000 — and thus yields quite a considerable 
supply of food to the larger and better flavoured fishes- 
of-prey. 
No special fishery is carried on for the White Bream 
to the best of our knowledge; but as it is, so to speak, 
omnipresent, it is taken with most of the tackle em- 
ployed for other fishes. The greatest quantity is caught 
in spring, at the approach of the spawning-season, in 
the baskets (Sw. lanor ) set for Eel in rivers and large 
streams. 
(Ekstrom, Smitt.) 
As we have mentioned above, the difficulties of the 
systematist are increased by the occurrence in this fa- 
mily of forms whose characters incapacitate them for a 
place either within the Leueiscine or the Abramidine 
subfamily, though their whole nature distinctly indicates 
“ “Because it always keeps to the shore” (Rondelet). 
b Gkimm, Fishing and Hunting in Russian Waters , p. 15. 
their near relationship to one or other of the species 
already described. These forms have been explained as 
hybrids; and in Southern Sweden (Scania and Blekinge) 
we find two of them, descended probably on one side 
from the White Bream and on the other from the Rudd 
