28 THE PIKE-PERCH. 



As regards the waters of the interior at least, the 

 learned in Sweden and Denmark only admit of a single 

 species of pike-perch ; but the fishermen in my neigh- 

 bourhood spoke (erroneously, no doubt) of a second. That 

 which spawned first, and which they described as the 

 larger and darker in colour of the two, they called the 

 Is , or Ice-G6s, and the other the Abborre , or Perch- 

 Gos. 



The pike-perch's movements in -the water are described as 

 heavy and ungainly, and his disposition dull and inert. 

 Hence the saying : " Dum som en gos," that is, stupid as 

 a pike -perch. 



"This fish," so we are told by Ekstrom, "prefers deep, 

 clear, and pure water, where the bottom is of stones or sand. 

 On clayey bottoms, where the water is easily rendered turbid, 

 he is never, so far as my experience extends, to be found ; 

 and if found at all in such localities, it is only very rarely, and 

 then by accident." Kroyer says also : " The gos delights 

 in deep water, with sandy or stony bottoms. Under other 

 circumstances it would seem scarcely to thrive moderately 

 well, or even to exist at all." But in this matter these great 

 authorities are somewhat in error, for gos abounded in an 

 immense inlet of the Wenern, in my neighbourhood, where 

 the water is not only comparatively shallow, but almost 

 invariably so excessively turbid, that it was a miracle to me 

 how the fish could manage to see the bait. 



Though I myself cannot remember ever hearing the cha- 

 racter of a wanderer attributed to the pike-perch, Boie would 

 make him out to be somewhat discursive. " In the lakes of 

 Holstein, the fishermen," he tells us, " have noted a periodical 

 increase and decrease in their numbers. For several successive 



