92 ANECDOTES OF FISHES 



Some time ago, two young gentlemen of Dum- 

 fries, while fishing at Dalswinton loch, having 

 expended their stock of worms, &c. had recourse 

 to the expedient of picking out the eyes of the 

 dead perch, and attaching them to their hooks, 

 a bait which the perch is known to take quite 

 as readily as any other. One of the perch 

 caught in this manner struggled so much when 

 taken out of water, that the hook had no sooner 

 been loosened from its mouth, than it came in 

 contact with one of its own eyes, and actually 

 tore it. The pain occasioned by this accident 

 only made the fish struggle the harder, until at 

 last it fairly slipped through the holder's fingers, 

 and again escaped to its native element. The 

 disappointed fisher, still retaining the eye of the 

 aquatic fugitive, adjusted it on the hook, and 

 again committed his line to the waters. After a 

 very short interval, on pulling up the line, he was 

 astonished to find the identical perch that had 

 eluded his grasp a few minutes before, and which 

 literally perished by swallowing its own eye. 

 London Museum, Sept. 14, 1822. 



I caught a large perch, weighing three pounds, 

 by a hook passed through the back fin of a min- 

 now ; and lost several by the hook passed through 

 the upper part of the mouth, Salmonia. 



