244 THE PERCH 



CHAPTER IV 



THE PERCH OF STILL WATERS 



UNLESS our young days have been passed in a trout- 

 stream country such as the northern parts of Scot- 

 land, Devonshire, or the green Emerald Isle the 

 first fish of our youthful days is usually a perch or 

 roach ; and in nine cases out of ten its habitat, as 

 ichthyologists love to say, is a humble little pond. 

 The laddie in the illustration facing this page is one of 

 a very great clan the members of which are as enthu- 

 siastic over their sport and obtain as much enjoyment 

 out of it as the keenest salmon or trout fisher of more 

 mature years. 



My first perch came wriggling out of the mill-dam 

 at Godstone, and was caught on one of those fearful 

 and alarming paternosters fearful and alarming, at 

 least, to any but very small pond perch by which the 

 tackle makers of the day deluded their confiding 

 customers into spending eighteenpence or even two 

 shillings, I will not put the head of a historic tackle 



