58 THE AJSr GLEE-NATURALIST. 



even 4 lbs. are probably less rare than may be supposed. 

 Such fish have been taken in the Pen Ponds, Richmond 

 Park ; and Pennant records the capture of one in the Ser- 

 pentine which weighed 8 lbs. 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. One is recorded by Izaak Walton as having 

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

 and in the ' Sure Angler's Guide,' the author says that 

 he saw 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 either of these sizes 

 represents the maximum 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 informs 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 some- 

 where about 3|^ feet. 



The annexed table of the comparative weights and mea- 

 sures of Perch, which, with several other similar scales. 



