112 ANGLING 



a fish of a pound weight, the ovarium of which weighed 

 a quarter of a pound, and contained 992,000 eggs. 

 Their increase, in favourable situations, must conse- 

 quently be enormous. 



This fish reaches a considerable size. Some authors 

 affirm that he has occasionally attained a weight of nine 

 or ten pounds. Perch have sometimes been caught at 

 "Whittlesea Mere of six pounds ; and we have ourselves 

 taken them of three and four pounds. But, speaking 

 generally, an angler must consider himself somewhat 

 fortunate if he succeed in killing perch whose average 

 weight shall reach a pound or a pound and a half. 

 Excellent sport is to be obtained with fish much below 

 these weights; for, as he is a fearless, dashing fellow, 

 he will always afford the sportsman more amusement 

 than any other fish twice his size, with the exception 

 of the trout and salmon, whose magnificent leaps and 

 rushes none who have ever witnessed them can possibly 

 forget. 



The perch frequents deep weedy holes, the stone walls 

 about locks and mills, reedy streams, where the water 

 pours freely ; and invariably in those places where there 

 is a constant or frequent rapid fall of water. If you 

 can keep your line down, the stronger the stream in 

 which you angle for perch the better; but more will 

 be said on this matter in another place. 



Perch are to be met with almost everywhere ; there 

 is scarcely a river in England, adapted to his nature and 

 habits, in which he cannot be found. The lakes in the 

 north of England, and many in Scotland, are full of 

 these fish; and private ponds in which jack are pre- 

 served generally abound with them, as the jack will 

 not eat the perch unless urged by extremity of hunger, 

 and then he seldom recovers the effects of the perch's 

 sharp and penetrating dorsal fin. 



The flesh of the perch was deemed salubrious by the 

 physicians, and they were accustomed to prescribe two 

 little round bones in his head to be dissolved, and taken 

 as a remedy for the "stone." There are various modes 

 of cooking the perch. The best way with which we are 



