PERCH-FISHING. 253 



swallowing, but that, on the contrary, they would naturally 

 rather assist it than otherwise in the same way that the ' beard ' 

 of an ear of barley assists it in forcing a way up one's coat- 

 sleeve. 



The effect of these back-action chevaux-de-frise is curiously 

 illustrated by a circumstance of not unfrequent occurrence in 

 Sweden, and elsewhere, where pike and perch inhabit the same 

 lakes. The perch swallow the trimmer baits, and then pike in 

 their turn gorge the hooked perch. In this case, although the 

 pike is seldom or never actually hooked, yet, on the fisherman's 

 drawing in his line, the perch sets so fast in his throat that he 

 is unable to get rid of it, and both are taken. 



That the spines of the perch are very formidable weapons, 

 of which they readily make use, is proved by an instance 

 recently in a stock-pond near Weybridge, where one of these 

 fish, of about half-a-pound, attacked a pike of the same weight, 

 the result being that after a prolonged contest, carried on by 

 both combatants with great fury, the pike was apparently either 

 killed or stunned, and lay motionless on the bottom, belly 

 uppermost. The Rev. Henry Francis, my informant, an en- 

 thusiastic naturalist as well as a most careful observer, was of 

 opinion that perch themselves certainly do not object to these 

 spines, so far as swallowing is concerned, and in a vivarium he 

 has often observed them take with avidity smaller members 

 both of their own and the ruffe species. 



Here is rather a tall American story on this subject, which 

 I lately read in the New York Spirit of the Times : 



Who will believe the statement ? and yet we know it to be true. 

 A two pound perch caught a bull-head in his mouth, in the 

 Connecticut River, near Hartford, and the bull-head used his 

 prongs to so good advantage that the black-fish could neither eat 

 him, nor get away from him \ and after a day or two the black-fish 

 was found by the master of a sloop in that neighbourhood, entirely 

 dead, with the bull-head or cat-fish sticking across his mouth the 

 bull-head being not only alive, but full of energy, and ready for 

 another adventure. 



