*FHE BLEAK. 
3 oa 
but in about two hours they recover and difappear. When 
thus affected, the fifhermen on the 'Thames call them mad 
bleaks. Pennant imagines, that they are then troubled 
with a fpecies of hair worm, which Arijlotle obferved to 
infeft fome other kinds of fifti *. 
It is of the filvery fcaies of this fpecies of fifli, that 
artificial pearls are made ; an art which owes its origin 
to the French, and is by them carried on to fuch an ex- 
tent, that one artill in Paris ufed thirty hampers of fifli 
in this manufafture, during the fpace of a Angle winter. 
The fcaies are beat down into a fine powder, then diluted 
with water, and introduced into a thin glai's bubble, which 
is afterwards filled with wax. 
The minnow is a beautiful fmall fifli, about three inches 
in length, and fcarcely half the fize of the bleak ; it fre- 
quents molt of our pure gravelly ftreams, and is always 
gregarious. It has no teeth ; and the fcaies are fo fmall, 
that they are almoft invifible. The back is a dark olive 
colour; each fide beautifully adorned with a lateral line 
of bright gold. The colour of the fides and belly varies ; 
in fome it is white, and in others yellow ; in lome it is 
of a rich crimfon. Taking the minnow is one of the fa- 
vourite, and perhaps molt innocent amufemeats of chil- 
dren. This firft effay at angling is performed with a 
bended pin, baited with a final! earth worm. 
During the month of June, there appears in the 
Thames, near Blackmail and Greenwich, a fifh evidently 
of this genus, called the white bait. No naturalift has 
yet determined to what particular fiih it belongs, though 
all arc agreed, that it is the young of fome fpecies that 
reforts there. Some have aferibed its origin to the Iliad ; 
others to the fprat, the fmelt, and the bleak. Thel'e filh, 
however. 
* Brit. Zool. Species 1 
