Elongated: lower jaw longest, ascending: anal with about nineteen rays: bright silvery; fins pellucid white.

C. Alburnus, Linn. Syst. Nat. torn. i. p. 531. Block, Ichth. pl. 8. f. 4. Don. Brit. Fish. vol. i. pl. 18. Turt. Brit. Faun. p. 109. Leuciscus Alburnus, Flem. Brit. An. p. 188. Bleak, Will. Hist. Pise. p. 263. tab. Q. 10. f. 7. Penn. Brit. Zool. vol. iii. p. 370. pl. 73. Id. (Edit. 1812). vol. hi. p. 487. pl. 84. Bowd. Brit. fr. wat. Fish. Draw. no. 4. Yarr. Brit. Fish. vol. i. p. 368. L'Ablette, Cuv. Reg. An. torn. It. p. 276.

Length

From six to seven, rarely eight, inches.

Description

{Form). General form resembling that of the Dace, but more elongated: greatest depth exactly one-fifth of the entire length; greatest thickness about half the depth: ventral line more convex than the dorsal, rising rather abruptly posteriorly along the base of the anal fin: head contained five times and a half in the entire length: forehead flat: eyes large; their diameter very nearly one-third the length of the head: snout short; lower jaw projecting, ascending to meet the upper: lateral line descending in a sweep from the upper angle of the opercle till it reaches the middle of its course, thence passing off nearly straight to the caudal; above the ventrals its course is at just two-thirds of the depth: scales of moderate size, thin, finely striated, easily detached; number in the lateral line about forty-eight; above it seven and a half; beneath three and a half: dorsal entirely behind the middle; its greatest height about two-thirds of the depth; its length scarcely more than half its height; first ray only half the length of the second; second and third rays longest; the succeeding ones decreasing; the first two simple, the rest branched: anal commencing in a line with, or rather in advance of, the last ray of the dorsal; longer than in any of the preceding species of this sub-genus, and occupying half the space between the vent and the origin of the caudal fin; the first two rays very short; third and fourth longest, about equalling the longest rays in the dorsal; the first three simple, the others branched: caudal forked for half its length; the lower lobe of the fin a very little longer than the upper: pectorals shorter than the head, not reaching to the ventrals when laid back: ventrals shorter than the pectorals, considerably before the dorsal, and not reaching to the vent.

D. 10 or 11; A. 19 to 21; C. 19, etc.; P. 16; V. 9.

(Colours). Back olivaceous green; sides and belly bright silvery; the two colours separated by a well-defined line: cheeks and gill-covers silvery white: all the fins pale; the anal and ventrals nearly pure white: irides pale yellow.

Common in rivers, swimming in large shoals near the surface. Spawns in May and June. Food, principally insects.