118 DAYS AMONG THE PIKE AND PERCH 



representative of the spinous-finned fish that means 

 having spikes or sharp points on the end of the rays of 

 some of his fins. One great feature of this fish is the 

 second fin on his back nearer the tail. Scientifically 

 he is known as Perca fluviatilis, and he is one of the 

 handsomest fresh- water fishes that inhabits inland waters. 

 I consider him a fresh-water gem of the first water, an 

 emerald fit for a royal crown. Just look at him, and the 

 beautiful scarlet of his fins, the golden rings of his eyes, 

 the pale green of his sides, shaded and relieved by the 

 darker bars that stripe his body from the shoulder to the 

 tail. His scales are small, very hard, and extremely 

 difficult to scrape off, but they are arranged in perfect 

 order. Taking him all round, when in good condition he 

 is about as perfect a form of fish life as it is possible to 

 conceive. The dark stripes or bars down his sides, one 

 of which is a forked one, number, I think, no more than 

 seven, although I saw one once that had been preserved 

 with nine, but the setter-up of that perch probably thought 

 he could improve on Nature. 



Perch spawn early, about the latter end of April or the 

 beginning of May, and they select peculiar places for 

 depositing the ova ; they hang it on submerged boughs, 

 on the reed and flag beds, over the stones, and old sunken 

 woodwork, spreading it out like long festoons of lace. 

 Now the water-fowl, tame and wild, reap a merry harvest, 

 gobbling it up by the yard ; a few rods of fine wire-netting, 

 if anyhow possible, put round and over this spawn would 

 do more good in perch preservation than many times the 

 amount spent in restocking. They are wonderfully 

 prolific ; as many as three-quarters of a million eggs have 

 been calculated, by weighing and counting a small portion, 

 to be in the ovum of a pound perch. But considering the 

 enemies this spawn has, and the danger of its being washed 

 away by floods, etc., this great quantity never comes to 

 maturity ; probably not more than one egg out of every 

 thousand reaches the stage of a takable fish. 



