26 SLOW GROWTH OF THE PERCH. 



lastly, that from the eggs being strung together, they are 

 more liable to be cast ashore by storms, where they soon 

 perish. 



The perch is of slow growth. Kroyer says, that at the 

 commencement of the first winter, the young fish are only an 

 inch in length ; in the third year, about six inches, and the 

 weight three ounces ; and in the sixth, their length sixteen 

 inches, and weight one pound and a half. Swedish and 

 Danish naturalists seem to be of opinion, that it is not until 

 its third year that this fish is capable of procreation. 



With us at Ronnum, the perch did not attain to any 

 considerable size. I myself never killed one of more than 

 three pounds weight, nor did I ever hear, from an authentic 

 source at least, of any perch much exceeding five pounds. 

 The monster head two spans in length spoken of by 

 Scheifer, as preserved in the Church of Lulea, in Lapland, 

 and assumed to be that of a perch, Swedish naturalists of 

 the present day regard as that of some other fish ; and, more- 

 over, not a Sebastes, as Cuvier seems to have imagined. 



The perch is captured in Sweden by a variety of devices, 

 but in summer chiefly, perhaps, with hook and line. In my 

 neighbourhood, more especially in the Wenern, great things 

 are at times done by this method. " About midsummer," 

 so writes a friend, resident on the northern shores of the lake, 

 " a couple of men may, in the course of three or four hours, 

 capture fifteen to eighteen lispund that is, from three 

 hundred to three hundred and sixty pounds." 



At this season, perch may frequently be seen in large 

 shoals near to the surface, and continually leaping out of 

 the water in pursuit of small fry, insects, &c. During 

 the chase, it often lashes the water with its tail, thereby 



