48 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 
“carriage ” makes between two men of equal stature, or even 
in the same man at different periods. Take an awkward 
ploughboy or slouching “‘cab-runner,” and make him enlist, 
say, in the Grenadier Guards. After six months or a year 
it is difficult to recognise the same individual in the erect, 
well-poised, smart-mannered soldier which has been wrought 
out of the raw material. Well, it is the same among fish. 
Such creatures as chub and flounders never seem able to do 
themselves justice. The chub shines and the flounder dis- 
plays beautiful half-tones of colour; but they are always 
clumsy, awkward creatures, and the angler who takes them 
derives small satisfaction from contemplating the contents of 
his basket. It is far otherwise with the perch. Living, he 
always makes the most of himself ; dead, he becomes what 
the Scottish nurse consoled her dying patient by assuring him 
he would make—“a beautiful corpse.” At his worst, the 
perch never assumes that lankiness which disfigures some 
sporting fish when out of condition. The peculiar arched or 
“hogged ” contour of his back preserves him from that, and 
this also serves to balance the size of the head and mouth, 
which are otherwise rather too large for perfect symmetry. 
Yet if the perch cannot be considered graceful, it must be 
pronounced well proportioned, the size and position of the 
different external organs being in remarkable relation to each 
other. The head, from tip of snout to posterior angle of 
operculum or gill-cover, almost exactly equals the greatest 
depth of body between back and belly, and the same measure- 
ment applies to the distance from tip of snout to commence- 
ment of the foremost dorsal fin, to the base of that fin, to 
the spread of the tail or caudal fin from point to point, and 
to the interval between the posterior ray of the ventral fin 
and the anterior ray of the anal fin. The back rises steeply 
from the head to the commencement of the dorsal fin, whence 
it slopes gently to the tail, whereof the fleshy part is very 
slender and mobile. 
