144 



THE PERCH. 



come very fat. Of the notitia of large perch, we have be- 

 fore observed on one taken in the Serpentine River, in Hyde 

 Park, which weighed nine pounds, and another of eight 

 pounds, taken in Dagenham Breach, by a Mr. Curtis. In 

 ' The Angler's Sure Guide,' mention is made of the portrait 

 of one caught near Oxford, which was twenty-nine inches 

 long, and of a proportionate depth ; and supposing such mea- 

 sure to have been correct, the weight must have been very 

 great. 



" The perch is gregarious, in the strictest sense of the 

 word : a number herd together by a sort of compact, which 

 confines them to situation, to size, and to habit as well as 

 manner; all are alike; the same hole contains them, and the 

 same swim maintains them; and if one should be taken, it is 

 the Angler's own fault if the whole do not share the same 

 fate. This circumstance is remarkable in a fish of prey, since 

 predatory fish in most instances are solitary ; and it is even 

 more singular in one so voracious as to swallow its own eye, 

 as heretofore stated.* 



The common mode of angling for perch in ponds, is with' 

 a light stiff' rod, similar to that used in worm-angling for trout, 



* The following is the circumstance alluded to : " Some time ago, two 

 young gentlemen of Dumfries, 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 they had taken, and attaching 

 them to their hooks — a bait which this fish is known to take as readily as 

 any other. One of the perch caught in this manner struggled so much 

 when taken out of the water, that the hook had no sooner been loosened 

 from its mouth than it came in contact with one of its own eyes, and ac- 

 tually tore it out. In the struggle, the fish slipped through the holder's 

 fingers, and again escaped to its native elempnt. 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 in 

 swallowing its own eye." 



