PLATE XCIII. 
green changing to a dusky colour glossed with silvery blue. The 
former hues may be revived in some measure several hours after the 
fish dies by moistening it with fresh water. The fishermen assert 
that when the Breams ascend rivers they are collected into small 
shoals, each of which is preceded by a leader who directs the course of 
the shoal and differs in appearance from the rest. This is called by our 
fishermen the “Queen bream,” and by the French “ Chef cle bremes.” 
This kind of Bream is particularly described by Bloch, the one he 
examined was thirteen inches long, and differed in the following par- 
ticulars from the common breams, the eye was large, and the iris 
blueish : the head, and bottom of the fins of a fine red purple, 
the last bordered with a reddish band: the scales were smaller and 
thicker : the body also was marked with several red spots of an irre- 
gular form, and was covered with a viscous matter. It is conjectured 
this may be a cross breed between the Cyprinus Erythrophtalmus and 
the Bream. In the spring the Bream is sometimes found with a 
number of minute whitish tubercles on the body, the effect of some 
malady to which this fish is liable. 
The number of rays in the anal fin are by no means sufficiently 
constant as to afford us a criterion of the species, they are usually 
about twenty seven in number but are not so uniformly. In the dor- 
sal fin of one specimen we examined are twelve rays ; in the pectoral 
fin eleven rays : in the ventral fin eight rays, and the tail twenty two. 
