SMALL GAME FISHES OF ENGLAIfD 



For, like the wicked, unalarmed they view 

 Their fellows perish, and their path pursue.' 



I conceive the perch to be a game fish, as he has given so 

 much pleasTire to thousands, men, women and children nearly 

 aU over the civilized world. You can even find him as a fossil 

 in Oeningen, and almost everywhere in Europe, Lapland and 

 Siberia. It is an Alpine climber up to lakes four thousand feet 

 in air in Switzerland, and is just as much at home in the brackish 

 waters of the Caspian and Baltic seas, or the shallows of the Sea 

 of Azof. In America, it ranges from Labrador to Georgia. It 

 does not seem to fancy Scotland north of the Firth, or the country 

 west of the Eocky Moimtains. Dr. Day has written exhaustively 

 of the perch in England, and of the shoals found in the S'orfolk 

 Broads. 



They spawn in the spring, but at different times in different 

 waters. In America in May, or in the south, March or April. 

 In England and Sweden in April and May. In France and Aus- 

 tria, March to May. Frank Buckland states that a perch deposits 

 one hundred and eighty thousand eggs. Lacepfede raises this to 

 one million. Block gives it as twenty-eight thousand, and Abbot 

 as eight thousand. The cheerful angler may take a general aver- 

 age, and feel sure that the yellow perch is safe from extinction for 

 aU time. 



The literature of the perch is interesting, particularly in 

 England. The Saxons represented one of their gods standing 

 on the back of a perch, ' emblematic of constancy in trial, and 

 patience in adversity.' 



Drayton in his PolyolMon says : — 



' The perch with prickling fins against the pike prepared, 

 As nature had thereon bestowed this stronger guard. 

 His daintiness to keep.' 



AU the treatises on angling refer in detail to the perch. ' The 

 perch with fins of Tyrian dye,' and J. P. Wheeldon, an EngUsh 

 author, says : — ' A gloriously handsome fish, the perch, when in 



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