OF GREAT BRITAIN. 91 



— find a gratification in the exercise of their pre- 

 datory instincts even when the appetite of hunger 

 has been fully satiated. 



Although having, it will thus be seen, the 

 bump of destructiveness very liberally developed, 

 Perch are by no means difiicult to tame : Mr. Jesse 

 succeeded, after a few days only, in inducing them 

 to feed from his hand. Bloch mentions having 

 watched them depositing their ova in a vessel kept 

 in his own room ; and I was informed by Mr. 

 Bartlett, the eminent and indefatigable Superin- 

 tendent of the Zoological Gardens in Regent's 

 Park, that the Perch in the aquarium there in- 

 crease their numbers by an annual shoal of young 

 fry which are hatched and reared under the eyes 

 of hundreds of visitors. 



A comical anecdote turning upon this faculty 

 of ready acclimatization is related by the author of 

 " Fishes and Fishing." A country gentleman, in 

 order to add to the usual attractions of a Christmas 

 visit, offered a London friend of piscatorial ten- 

 dencies the temptation of a "day's fishing in his 

 private water." The sportsman arrived, with a 

 good assortment of rods, lines, &c., and was all- 

 impatient to be at his work. After lunch his host in- 

 troduced the visitor to " his water" — which proved 

 to be an ornamental basin, in width about equal 

 to the lencrth of one of the rods the angler had 

 brought with him. The chagrin and disappoint- 

 ment of the latter may be imagined ; but upon the 



