PERCH. 59 



worms thrown in occasionally as ground bait will 

 assist in attracting the fish. 



Perch most commonly swim in shoals, so that 

 when one is caught others may be expected to 

 follow. In Windermere I have watched these 

 shoals, and found them to consist not infrequently 

 of many hundreds. In Slapton Ley, Devonshire, 

 they can hardly be said to be in " shoals," as the 

 whole water swarms with them, and I have fre- 

 quently caught them there literally as fast as I 

 could bait. As a rule, however, they are quite in- 

 significant in the matter of size, very few of those 

 that I caught or saw exceeding a few ounces in 

 weight. They are smaller than even the Winder- 

 mere fish. Perch are the only English species of 

 scale fish which have been clearly proved to be bi- 

 sexual, that is, to contain in each separate indi- 

 vidual the means of reproduction complete in 

 other words, both milt and roe. They spawn 

 towards the end of April, or beginning of May, 

 casting their eggs in strings like festoons of pearls 

 about the weeds and rocks. That they increase 

 rapidly is not to be wondered at when it is con- 

 sidered that as many as 280,000 eggs have been 



