42 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 



the perch, and to some careful etymologists it has appeared 

 that barsch has been formed from -perch by the softening of 

 the initial consonant ; but Professor Skeat is of opinion that 

 they are different words. Local pundits explain the East 

 Anglian name " barse " to have arisen from the bars or 

 stripes which distinguish this fish among all others. In fact, 

 this explanation has been solemnly offered in a recent work 

 of sterling merit, and highly readable withal, 'The Practical 

 Fisherman^ by J. H. Keene,* who quotes Mr. Manley, 

 another writer upon angling, as his authority. 



The perch is, indeed, well named " the striped fellow." 

 But for those conspicuous dark bars, he would be almost in- 

 visible in his native haunts, moving ghost-like among waving 

 water-weeds and over brown pebbles, which accord closely with 

 the ashen-green tints that form the ground-colour of his back 

 and sides. Indeed, the perch is quite the most conspicuous 

 denizen of British inland waters, and the decorative effect 

 of these stripes acts strangely at variance with the usual 

 protective scheme of colour conferred upon fish and other 

 animals exposed to attack from more powerful predatory 

 species. 



This is the more puzzling inasmuch as, in other respects, 

 the perch is not without provision for escaping observation. 

 Protective It possesses in a high degree that peculiar property 

 coloration. o f s ki n w hich causes so many fish to adapt them- 

 selves to their temporary background by assimilation to the 

 prevailing tints thereof. When the perch haunts a dark 

 bottom, the hue of its skin deepens ; in a chalk stream, where 

 the bottom is light-coloured, this fish parts with its deep 

 olive tints and assumes a yellowish-grey colour. But the 

 characteristic dark bars always remain in the same relation 

 of conspicuous contrast to the general skin tint. 



There is no evidence that these protective changes depend 

 in the slightest degree upon the volition of the fish, nor that 



* London, 1881. 



