57 



As a mere question of sport, the introduction of perch will 

 be regarded as a boon by a large number of people, for while 

 comparatively few will like to incur the expense of salmon 

 fishing or undergo the labour required to attain proficiency in 

 trout fishing, numbers will follow a sport like perch fishing, 

 which yields much recreation at little cost. So keenly is this 

 felt by many English fishermen that while strenuous efforts 

 are being made to increase the number of trout in the Thames, 

 and to re-establish the salmon there, large sums of money are 

 expended in affording protection to the perch and other white 

 fish. 



But beyond all this one strong reason for the introduction 

 of perch is to be found in the fact that for purposes of artificial 

 rearing, no food is so easily grown for the young salmon and 

 trout in their earliest stages as the minute perch fry, each of 

 the latter being not one twentieth the size of their devourers 

 when those devourers first begin to feed. 



At Huningue and Stormontfield the young fish are fed with 

 boiled liver, pounded fine, but however carefully used, a quan- 

 tity of this liver escapes the fish, and gets lodged in the gravel, 

 where it decomposes and soon becomes a fertile source of 

 disease and death. Even the young larvae of the common 

 blow fly, hitherto used at the Plenty, though somewhat better 

 than liver, are apt to escape the fish and die, doing more or 

 less damage to the water, but if a stream from a pond in 

 which perch are hatching by millions is led through the water 

 containing young salmon or trout, all the perch fry which are 

 not immediately bolted, roam quietly about, doing no harm to 

 the water, till their inevitable turn comes. 



A lot of young trout hatched from the egg and fed in this 

 manner during the winter of 1867 were turned out at four 

 months old with a loss of only 6 per cent. 



