THE PERCH. 157 



But although as I have before remarked the perch grows but 

 slowly, and in some waters never attains to any considerable size, 

 yet these remarks are not universally applicable ; and were it not 

 that these thoughtless fishes are generally caught by some means 

 or other before they attained one half their full growth, far lar- 

 ger specimens than we are in the habit of seeing would often be 

 met with. I myself never saw but one perch that reached the 

 weight of three pounds, though several of my angling acquaintance 

 tell me they have had the good fortune to capture some of much 

 weightier dimensions. The perch indeed of three pounds I have 

 just before alluded to I did not catch myself, but as it was taken in 

 rather an unusual manner an account of it may not prove wholly 

 uninteresting. An intimate and esteemed friend of mine, but a 

 very bad fisherman, after fishing for several hours one bright sum- 

 mer's day without obtaining even a nibble, at last as is the wont 

 of very bad fishermen amused himself by looking into the 

 depth of the stream, and pleased doubtless at thus routing the en- 

 emy he was unable to capture. At length he espied an eel that 

 boldly stood his ground, before whose nose he dropped a bait, 

 which the latter seized upon without scruple, and was wriggling 

 himself stern foremost off with his imaginary prize crosswise in 

 his mouth, when a gallant perch hove in sight, sailing on as ma- 

 jestically as a three decker under studding sails, who catching a 

 view of the worm darted forward and put in his claim, in the asser- 

 tion of which my friend lent him every assistance, by pulling for- 

 cibly against the eel, who finding the long odds he had to contend 

 against, let go to the worm, (for he had never taken the hook into 

 his mouth,) which the perch instantly seized upon. How the 

 perch was eventually subdued I do not exactly remember, though I 

 have heard the whole tale oftentimes repeated ; at any rate the perch 

 was canght, and I myself ate a portion of him afterwards, and he 

 fully verified the old knight's proverb of 



" Old fish at table," &c. 

 for the rest I must refer you to Pope's January and May. 



But it won't do for an angler, even the most experienced , to 

 which I have no pretensions, to speak only from the fish that may 

 or may not have come within his own especial observation. Good 

 old Walton mentions one taken in his time by Sir Abraham Wil- 

 liams, which was two feet long, and a deep bodied fish to boot ; 

 and if my memory deceives me not, I have seen a portrait of_one 



