60 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 
gills, and scales remaining, broil it over a clear fire quickly. 
It will come to table seething and smoking. Insert a knife 
behind the head, and the scales, like a suit of armour, will 
come off. A little butter, pepper, and salt complete the 
preparation, and the flesh may be flaked from the bones— 
firm, white, and of most delicious flavour.” 
To this it is expedient to add the following warning : that, 
to be cooked in this way the fish must have been but a few 
hours at most out of the water, otherwise decomposition of the 
contents of the stomach and bowels will engender unpleasant 
consequences. 
Russian markets deal with large consignments of perch 
—fresh, frozen, salted, and dried—and these form an im- 
portant part of the food supply of the country. Except as 
food, the only economic use to which perch are put in that 
or any other country is in the manufacture of isinglass, from 
the dried skins. 
British anglers are accustomed to classify the fresh-water 
fish of their country somewhat roughly as “sporting fish” and 
Angling ‘coarse fish.” In the first of these classes are in- 
for Perch. cluded only fish of the salmon kind, viz., salmon 
and salmon-trout, river- and lake-trout, and grayling. At the 
head of the second class it is the custom to place the pike, in 
virtue of the great size to which that fish sometimes runs ; 
were it not for that, undoubtedly the highest rank would be 
assigned to the perch. This fish possesses that degree of 
voracity which is essential to the angler’s success in luring it 
to the hook. Small fish, worms, floating flies, water insects, 
and larve are all in their turn part of its staple diet, and it 
is very bold in pursuit of them. But, like all fish, the perch is 
subject to capricious periods of abstinence, when it refuses all 
food, even in the midst of abundance and variety. From this 
apparent caprice arises one of the most powerful attractions of 
angling—its uncertainty. Nobody can foretell with confidence 
the behaviour of fish at the beginning of any given day. They 
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