248 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 



caught, and from its appearance it certainly could not have 

 weighed less than five or six. 



Perch of 2 and 3 lbs. are by no means uncommon, and 

 specimens of even 4 lbs. are probably less rare than may be 

 supposed. Such fish have been taken in Pen Ponds, Richmond 

 Park ; and Pennant records the capture of a perch in the 

 Serpentine which weighed 8 lbs., and Stoddart, in his ' Angler's 

 Rambles,', one of 4 lbs. by Dr. Scott, in the Castle Loch, in 

 1858. Donovan speaks of a perch of 5 lbs., caught in Bala 

 Lake. 'Ephemera' (the late Edward Fitzgibbon) mentions 

 having seen a specimen which weighed 4 or 5 lbs. One 

 of 6 lbs. was taken by Mr. Hunt, of Brades, Staffordshire, 

 from the Birmingham Canal ; and two fish of 8 lbs. each are 

 stated to have been caught, the one in the Wiltshire Avon, and 

 the other in Dagenham Reach, Essex. All the above, however, 

 are capped by dear old Izaak, who says that he knew of one 

 being taken by a friend, which measured two feet in length ; 

 arid in the ' Sure Angler's Guide ' he saw also the figure of a 

 perch drawn in pencil on the door of a house near Oxford, 

 which was twenty-nine inches long, and he was informed that it 

 was the outline of a living fish. 



It is not probable, however, that we know accurately 

 what is the maximum weight attainable . by the perch under 

 favourable circumstances, even in British waters ; and they 

 probably reach a much greater weight in Scandinavia and 

 other northern countries. The Danube breeds enormous 

 perch ; and Schaffer assures us that in the church of Lulea, 

 Lapland, the head of one is preserved which is nearly a foot 

 long, giving the entire length of the fish at something about 

 35 feet 



The annexed table of the comparative weights and measures 

 of perch, which, with several other similar scales, was kindly 

 furnished me by Mr. Charles Wright, of the Strand, may 

 possibly be useful to the angler when unprovided with the means 

 of weighing his fish. It will, Mr. Wright assures me, be found 

 generally accurate when the fish are in season. 



