8o A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK : 



and on Ormesby Broad." Pennant speaks of a 

 perch, taken in the Serpentine, Hyde Park, 

 that weighed 9 lbs. In Scandinavia and Lap- 

 land the perch attains a still larger size, and 

 Bloch speaks of the head of a perch preserved 

 in the church of Luelah, in Lapland, which 

 measured twelve inches from the point of the 

 nose to the end of the gill-cover. Mr. Frank 

 Buckland was not lucky enough to get hold of 

 any of these perchy monsters, for the largest 

 that came into his hands was one sent to him 

 by Dr. Norman from Norfolk in 1868; it 

 weighed 3 lbs. 2 ozs. 



The quantity of ova varies very much in 

 perch, but all authorities are agreed that it is very 

 large. In one perch, of half a pound weight, 

 280,000 eggs were found, whereas in the Norfolk 

 perch just mentioned Mr. Buckland found only 

 155,620, in spite of the greater size of the 

 fish. 



The fact that perch have a most remarkable 

 capacity for living out of water for a consider- 

 able period, should add greatly to their value 

 as a marketable commodity. Thus, in some 



