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 

 " no gg e d " 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. 



