THE PERCH. 51 



as you please. If there be no current, throw it 

 cleverly, so as not to disengage the bait, to a con- 

 siderable distance from your punt. The perch is 

 a free biter, and no great amount of the assumed 

 one thing needful to a fisherman patience is 

 requisite. If you do not get a run soon, shift the 

 place of the bait ; that failing, shift yourself, and 

 seek another pitch. In summer the perch, in 

 common with pike and most other fish, affects the 

 weed, and you cannot do better than fish in the 

 immediate neighbourhood of a heavy mass im- 

 pinging upon deep water. In autumn and winter 

 they seek deep holes, and great numbers, sometimes 

 twenty or thirty, may be taken from one such 

 place. You must, however, be careful not to let 

 many escape, for, once pricked, the perch becomes 

 very restless, and is apt to lead or drive the shoal 

 away. 



This is not a treatise on Natural History, or I 

 might comment upon a singular fact which has 

 forced itself on my observation. I have hardly, if 

 ever, opened a fish that did not prove to be a female, 

 and, at what ever time of the year, always with spawn 

 fully developed, yet the spawning-time of perch 

 is in April or May. I have twice referred to this 

 curious fact in "Land and Water," with a request 

 for information on the subject, but without effect. 



