70 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK; 



dress was ever made so beautiful as that of a 

 perch's when he is in full season. His cuirass 

 of scales is formed of a lovely bronze, with 

 transverse bars of dark-green bronze, while 

 the whole is shaded with a lovely peacock 

 iridescence. His fins are coloured with a 

 lovely tinge of red, such as we may sometimes see 

 in the glass of very old church windows, or 

 occasionally in Salviati's beautiful glass. Artists 

 would do well to study the colouring of the 

 perch. They will not find such brilliancy of 

 colour or such a combination of tints in any 

 flower." Mr. Buckland might have quoted the 

 description of the serpent in Keats' " Lamia:" 



" She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue, 

 Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue ; 

 Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard, 

 Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr'd ; 

 And full of silver moons," 



But this extraordinary brilliancy of colouring, 

 bestowed on such a northerner as the British 

 perch, is more or less evanescent. " Age can 

 wither " him, and an elderly perch is a very 

 dusky object in comparison with the " chromatic 



