Baron Cuvier on the Common Perch. 161 



When the period of deposition has arrived, the female perch 

 rubs herself against hard bodies ; it is said that she even con- 

 trives it so that the point of a rush or reed enters the oviduct, 

 and attaches the glairy fluid which envelopes the ova. With 

 6ne point fixed thus, or to aquatic plants, she withdraws her- 

 self by sinuous movements, keeping entire the connection of 

 the gelatinous thread, and spinning, it may be said, this thread 

 into a long line similar to that of the ova of a frog. This line 

 is sometimes more than six feet in length, but it is folded or 

 laid one part of the thread above another in such a manner as 

 to form a kind of network of little heaps or balls. When this 

 is observed with a lens, four or five ova are always found uni- 

 ted in one pellicle ; and the little clusters or balls are so ar- 

 ranged, that the ova appear to be contiguous in square or hex- 

 agonal cells. 



At Paris the male perch is the least numerous, and the fish- 

 ermen assert that they scarcely take one male for fifty females. 

 It is perhaps a consequence of this that many of the ova are 

 not fecundated, and this may also serve to explain why in an 

 animal so prolific the species is not more multiplied. But this 

 inequality in the number of individuals of each sex is not the 

 same everywhere. In the lake of Harlem there are so many 

 males, that the village of Lisse is famed for a dish which is 

 prepared from the milts of perches. 



The perch is better armed against the attacks of its enemies 

 than most of the fresh water fishes. Its spines, when it at- 

 tains any considerable size, protect it from the voracity of 

 other fishes, and when full grown even the pike dares not at- 

 tack it, though the very young perches are its favourite food. 

 Several species of water-birds, however, pursue the perch with 

 avidity. It fears thunder, is afraid of frost and ice, and has 

 internal enemies in intestinal worms, of which, according to 

 Rudolphi, no less than seven species are found in the body of 

 the perch. This fish is very tenacious of life, and Pennant 

 asserts that it may be carried in dry straw for sixty miles 

 without much danger. They are brought to Paris from a dis- 

 tance of sixty leagues by water carriage in well-boats. 



It happens in certain circumstances that perches acquire a 

 kind of protuberance or hunch, which renders them deformed. 



NEW SERIES, VOL. I. NO. I. JULY 1829- L 



