262 APPENDIX. 



from them by the same method as is applied to 

 salmon and trout.* 



I have hatched out from the egg many thousand 

 young perch. The water should be just flowing, 

 a rapid stream is not required. I obtained my 

 stock principally from the Thames, where the 

 spawn (that is, what the swans had left of it) could, 

 a week or ten days ago (May 9th), be seen hanging 

 to the boughs and bushes like masses of jelly. I 

 have, moreover, some spawn which I have taken 

 from the fish, and treated after the usual manner, 

 well known to pisciculturists. Now, this perch 

 spawn is very peculiar ; it is found in the form of 

 long ribbons. This, the reader may possibly think, 

 is no news. But let us examine it a little closer, 

 and we shall find it is really a beautiful structure. 

 In the first place we shall find, on close examina- 

 tion, that the ribbon is hollow ; for if a couple of 

 inches or so be cut off the length of the spawn and 

 floated in water, it can be spread out in the form of 

 a ring, about five or six inches in diameter. Again, 

 if the observer be very neat-handed, a thin stick, 

 or a whalebone rib of an old umbrella, can be 

 passed down the whole length of the ribbon, which 

 can thus be threaded on the stick like a footless 

 stocking onto a mop-handle. This hollow ribbon is 

 composed entirely of a mass of eggs, and these we 

 find to be arranged in a most remarkable manner. 

 There is now a portion of the spawn floating in 

 pure water before me, and it resembles exactly the 

 pattern of an old-fashioned long silk purse, or of a 



* See Mr. A. Smee's admirable book on "Reason and In- 

 stinct. " Bonn, Covent Garden. 



