ounds in weight, though some have been known to weigh ten or twenty. They love still waters, and are rarely found in rivers; they are very foolish and easily caught. The tench is thick and short in proportion to its length. The colour of the back is dusky; the dorsal and ventral fins of the same colour; the head, sides, and belly, of a greenish cast, most beautifully mixed with gold, which is in its greatest splendor when the fish is in the highest season.

4. The gudgeon is generally found in gentle streams, and is of a small size, the largest not exceeding half a pound weight. They bite eagerly; and are assembled by raking the bed of the river; to this spot they immediately crowd in shoals, in expectation of food.

5. The brama, or bream, is an inhabitant of lakes, or the deep parts of still rivers. It is a fish that is very little esteemed, being extremely infipid.

6. The rutilus, or roach, is a common fish, found in many of the deep still rivers of this country. They are gregarious, keeping in large shoals. It has never been known to exceed five pounds in weight.

7. The leniceps, or dace, like the roach is gregarious, haunts the same places, is a great breeder, very lively, and during summer is very fond of frolicking near the surface of the water. It never exceeds the weight of a pound and a half: the scales are smaller than those of the roach.

8. The cephalus, or chub, is a very coarse fish and full of bones. It frequents the deep holes of rivers; and in summer commonly lies on the surface beneath the shade of some tree or bush. It is very timid, sinking to the bottom on least alarm, even at the passing of a shadow; but they will soon resume their former situation. It feeds on worms, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and other coleopterous insects that happen to fall into the water; and it will even feed on cray-fish. It will rise to a fly. Some of this kind have been known to weigh eight or nine pounds.

9. The alburnus, or bleak. These fish are very common in many of our rivers, and keep together in large shoals. At certain seasons they seem to be in great agonies: they tumble about near the surface of the water, and are incapable of swimming far from the place; but in about two hours they recover and disappear. Fish thus affected, the Thames fishermen call mad bleaks. They seem to be troubled with a species of gordius, or hair-worm, which torments them so, that they rise to the surface and then die. The bleak seldom exceeds five or six inches in length. Artificial pearls are made with the scales of this fish, and probably also with those of the dace. They are beat into a fine powder, then diluted with water, and introduced into a thin glass bubble, which is afterwards filled with wax. The French were the inventors of this art. During the month of July there appear in the Thames, near Blackwall and Greenwich, innumerable multitudes of small fish, known to the Londoners by the name of white bait. They are esteemed very delicious when fried with fine flour, and occasion, during the season, a vast resort of the lower order of epicures to the taverns at the places where they are taken at. There are various suppositions concerning these fishes, all of which terminate in reckoning them the fry of some other fish. Mr Pennant thinks they are of the carp kind, though he cannot determine the Cyprinus species to which they belong. They have a greater similarity to the bleak than to any other, but he thinks they cannot be the young fry of this species; because the bleak is found in many of the British streams, but the white bait only in the Thames. The usual length of this fish is only two inches.

10. The auratus, or golden fish, a small fish domesticated by the Chinese, and generally kept for ornament by great people in their courts and gardens. They breed them in small ponds made for the purpose, in basins, and even in porcelain vessels. This fish is no larger than our pilchard. The male is of a bright red colour from the top of the head to the middle of the body; the rest is of a gold-colour; but it is so bright and splendid, that the finest gilding, according to F. le Comte, cannot approach it. The female is white; but its tail and half of its body resemble the lustre of silver. F. du Halde, however, observes, that a red and white colour are not always the distinguishing marks of the male and female; but that the females are known by several white spots which are seen round the orifices that serve them as organs of hearing, and the males, by having these spots much brighter. Gold fish are light and lively; they love to sport on the surface of the water, soon become familiarised, and may even be accustomed to come and receive their food on sounding a small rattle. Great care is necessary to preserve them; for they are extremely delicate, and sensible of the least injuries of the air: a loud noise, such as that of thunder or cannons; a strong smell, a violent shaking of the vessel, or a single touch, will oft-times destroy them. These fish live with little nourishment: those small worms which are engendered in the water, or the earthy particles that are mixed with it, are sufficient for their food. The Chinese, however, take care, from time to time, to throw into the basins and reservoirs where they are kept small balls of paste, which they are very fond of when dissolved; they give them also lean pork dried in the sun and reduced to a fine and delicate powder, and sometimes snails; the slime which these insects leave at the bottom of the vessel is a great delicacy for them, and they eagerly hasten to feed on it. In winter they are removed from the court to a warm chamber, where they are kept generally shut up in a porcelain vessel. During that season they receive no nourishment; however, in spring, when they are carried back to their former basin, they sport and play with the same strength and liveliness as they did the preceding year.

In warm countries these fish multiply fast, provided care be taken to collect their spawn, which floats on the water, and which they almost entirely devour. This spawn is put into a particular vessel exposed to the sun, and preserved there until vivified by the heat; gold-fish, however, seldom multiply when they are kept in close vases, because they are then too much confined. In order to render them fruitful, they must be put into reservoirs of considerable depth in some places at least, and which are constantly supplied with fresh water. At a certain time of the year, a prodigious number of barks may be seen in the great river Yang-tse-kiang, which go thither to purchase the spawn of these fish. Towards the month of May, the neighbouring inhabitants shut up the river in several places with mats and hurdles, which occupy an extent of almost nine or ten leagues; and they leave only a space in the middle sufficient for the passage of barks. The spawn of the fish, which the Chinese call distillate at first sight, although a stranger could perceive no traces of it in the water, is stopped by these hurdles. The water mixed with spawn is then drawn up, and after it has been put into large vessels, it is sold to merchants, who transport it afterwards to every part of the empire. This water is sold by measure, and purchased by those who are desirous of stocking their ponds and reservoirs with fish.

Notwithstanding the tenderness of these fishes even in their native climates, they are now naturalized in Britain, where they even breed. They were first introduced into England about the year 1691; but were not generally known till 1728, when a great number were brought over, and presented first to Sir Matthew Dekker, and by him circulated round the neighbourhood of London, from whence they have been distributed to most parts of the country.

Nothing can be more amusing than a glass bowl containing such fishes; the double refractions of the glass and water represent them, when moving, in a shifting and changeable variety of dimensions, shades, and colours; while the two mediums, assisted by the concavo-convex shape of the vessel, magnify and distort them vastly; not to mention that the introduction of another element and its inhabitants into our parlours engages the fancy in a very agreeable manner. Some people exhibit this sort of fish in a very fanciful way; for they cause a glass bowl to be blown with a large hollow space within that does not communicate with it. In this cavity they put a bird occasionally; so that you may see a goldfinch or a linnet hopping as it were in the midst of the water, and the fishes swimming in a circle round it. The simple exhibition of the fishes is agreeable and pleasant; but in so complicated a way becomes whimsical and unnatural, and liable to the objection due to him,

Qui variare cupit rem prodigaliter umam.