24 THE COMMON PERCH. 



taken. Those from shallow lakes, with grassy bottoms, are 

 smaller, leaner, and have less flavour than such as are bred 

 in large lakes, where the water is clear and deep, and where 

 there is a current, with a stony bottom. If the fish be 

 kept for a short time it loses its flavour, for which reason 

 it is commonly dressed as soon as may be after it is caught ; 

 and to make assurance doubly sure on this point, there are 

 those barbarous enough to pop the poor fellow, living as he 

 is, bodily into the boiling water ! 



But it is not alone for the table that the perch is valued in 

 Sweden (such, at least, was the case until very recently), for a 

 very strong glue is made out of its skin. This, when dried, 

 is steeped in cold water, and after the scales have been 

 scraped off, it is placed within a bullock's bladder, which is 

 tied so securely at the mouth that no water can penetrate. 

 This bladder is then placed in a cauldron, and boiled until 

 the skin is dissolved. The scales are also at times made 

 use of in the mounting of rings, and other ornaments. It is 

 not many years since, indeed, that they were used in em- 

 broideries on ribbons, reticules, &c. 



In my vicinity, the spawning season with the perch was 

 from about the middle of April to the end of May, or it 

 might be that it extended into the earlier days of June. Its 

 commencement and termination was greatly influenced, how- 

 ever, by the state of the spring. The perch pass the winter 

 in the deeps ; but at the breaking up of the frost, they, 

 in large shoals, make for the strand; for such spots, more 

 especially, in which the water is pretty deep, the bottom stony 

 or sandy, and overgrown with the common reed (Arundo 

 Phragmites, Linn.), or where it is strewn with boughs of 

 trees, &c. But if such localities are not to be met with, the 



