PLATE XL 
most an inch anJ three quarters ; but it arrives apparently at a greater 
size in other parts of Europe, as its length is commonly described by 
continental writers at about three inches. 
It is esteemed a very short-lived creature, compared with others of 
the finny tnbes, and has been called the “ Ephemera of Fishes” for 
that reason : it commonly dies in the first or second year, and rarely 
indeed lives through the third. The spawning season is in April and 
June, when it deposits a number of very minute eggs upon the stalks 
of aquatic plants, and at the bottoms of rivers. It is a voracious little 
creature, and feeds on worms and insects. Frisch, Pallas, and M. 
Pabriclus, who have each entered into its history, observe, that it is 
greatly tormented with worms at certain seasons ; a fact sufficiently 
obvious to every common observer. 
The head of this fish is rather compressed, and the eyes remark- 
ably prominent : the sides are covered with a scries of hard bony 
plates as in other species of the same genus ; near die tail the body 
IS square, and beneath the vent is a short spine. The dorsal spines 
''vhich characterise the species may be erected or depressed at plea- 
sure : the dorsal fin, which is near the tail, consists in our specimen 
of eleven rays, pectoral fin of ten rays, the ventral fin of a plate- 
lilte spine of three parts: anal fin one spiny and nine soft rays, 
and twelve rays in the tail. 
