The Compleat ^Angler 



He spawns but once a year, and is, by physicians, held very 

 nutritive ; yet, by many, to be hard of digestion. They abound 

 more in the river Po, and in England (says Rondeletius) than other 

 parts, and have in their brain a stone which is in foreign parts sold 

 by apothecaries, being there noted to be very medicinable against the 

 stone in the reins. These be a part of the commendations which 

 some philosophical brains have bestowed upon the fresh-water perch ; 

 yet they commend the sea-perch, which is known by having but 

 one fin on his back (of which, they say, we English see but a few) to 

 be a much better fish. 



The perch grows slowly, yet will grow, as I have been credibly 

 informed, to be almost two feet long ; for an honest informer told 

 me such a one was not long since taken by Sir Abraham Williams, a 

 gentleman of worth, and a brother of the angle (that yet lives, and I 

 wish he may) : this was a deep bodied fish, and doubtless durst have 

 devoured a pike of half his own length ; for I have told you he is a 

 bold fish, such a one as, but for extreme hunger, the pike will not 

 devour ; for to affright the pike, and save himself, the perch will set 

 up his fins, much like as a turkey-cock will sometimes set up his tail. 



But, my scholar, the perch is not only valiant to defend himself, 

 but he is (as I said) a bold-biting fish, yet he will not bite at all 

 seasons of the year ; he is very abstemious in winter, yet will bite 

 then in the midst of the day, if it be warm : and note, that all fish 

 bite best about the midst of a warm day in winter, and he hath been 

 observed by some not usually to bite till the mulberry-tree buds, 

 that is to say, till extreme frosts be past the spring, for when the 

 mulberry-tree blossoms, many gardeners observe their forward fruit 

 to be past the danger of frosts, and some have made the like observa- 

 tion on the perch's biting. 



But bite the perch will, and that very boldly : and as one has 

 wittily observed, if there be twenty or forty in a hole, they may be 

 at one standing all catched one after another, they being, as he says, 

 like the wicked of the world, not afraid, though their fellows and 

 companions perish in their sight. And you may observe, that they 

 are not like the solitary pike, but love to accompany one another, 

 and march together in troops. 



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