116 PEOSB HAIIETJTICS. 



Swiss lake larger than the one fatted near London, in 

 the Serpentine, which reached, according to Yarrell, the 

 weight of nine pounds, though even this falls short of 

 another cited hy the same author, — a Lapland monster, 

 measuring twelve inches from the extremity of the nose 

 to the edge of the gill-cover. 



That perch require clear fresh water for their very 

 existence, accounts perhaps for the wholesomeness of the 

 flesh, always superior, from this circumstance, to that 

 of either eel, carp, or tench, which, from feeding every- 

 where, often taste of the weeds and feculence where they 

 dwell. The ancients have not left us any hints as to 

 how perch were cooked : the present practice over the 

 continent is to stew them either in vinegar, fresh grape, 

 orange juice, or other sour sauce : but though this is 

 certainly the common way in some parts of Italy, at the 

 Lago Maggiore they are spitted in their scales, and 

 basted while roasting with the same acid juice : ia Hol- 

 land, butter is added. Though a scaly fish, they vitiate 

 Aristotle's dictum, and are best in roe. 



All perch open their mouth wide when taken out of 

 the water ; and long before we knew that one of the 

 family was called %ai^ (the gaper), we had entered him 

 in an old note-book as ' the wide-mouthed perch, that 

 dies with open gills.' It is generally when hungry that 

 he, like most yawners, yawns widest; like the %ai^, 

 bringing up at such times, like an angry camel, the sto- 

 mach into his mouth, a circumstance which Galen ex- 

 plains in an ingenious manner : he says, that as famished 

 persons stretch forth the hands to snatch at victuals, so 

 the stomach of this fish protrudes the gullet for the 

 same purpose; and generally, he adds, it will be seen 

 that whenever the conditions of hunger, a small swallow, 

 and large lax fauces are combined, the craving stomach 

 will be found making these instinctive hand-like efibrts 

 after food. The friendship said to subsist between perch 



