110 PEECH. 



mesoprion, which swims in the seas of Japan and India, and 

 flashes out brilliant rays of colour. The perch was assiduously 

 cultivated in ancient Italy, in the days when pisciculture was 

 an adjunct of gastronomy, and was thought to equal the mullet 

 in flavour. In Britain, the fish, left to its natural growth and 

 no care being taken to flavour it artificially, is surpassed for 

 table purposes by the salmon and the trout ; but perch being 

 abundant afford plenty of good fishing. The perch usually 

 congregate in small shoals, and delight in streams, or water with 

 a clear bottom and with overhanging foliage to shelter them 

 from the overpowering heat of summer. These fish do not 

 attain any considerable weight, the one recorded as being taken 

 in the Serpentine, in Hyde Park, which weighed nine pounds, 

 being stiU the largest on record. Perch of three and four pounds 

 are by no means rare, and those of one pound or so are quite 

 common. The perch is a stupid kind of fish, and easily captured. 

 Many of the foreign varieties of perch attain an immense weight. 

 Some of the ancient writers teU us that the " lates" of the NUe 

 attained a weight of three hundred pounds ; and then there is 

 the vacti of the Ganges, which is often caught five feet long. 

 The perch, after it is three years old, spawns about May. It 

 may be described as rather a hardy fish, as we know it will live 

 a long time out of water, and can be kept alive among wet moss, 

 so that it may be easily transferred from pond to pond. Its 

 hardy nature accounts for its being found in so many northern 

 lochs and rivers, as in the olden times of slow conveyances it 

 must have taken a long time to send the fish to the great dis- 

 tances we know it must have been carried to. On the Continent, 

 living perch are a feature of nearly aU the fishmarkets. The 

 fish, packed in moss and occasionally sprinkled with water, are 

 carried from the country to the cities, and if not sold are taken 

 home and replaced in the ponds. This particular fish, which is 

 very prolific, might be " cultivated " to any extent. Fish- 

 ponds, although not now common, used to be at one time as 

 much a food-giving portion of a country gentleman's commis- 

 sariat as his kitchen-garden or his cow-paddock. 



■ As I have said so much about the Scottish lochs, it would 

 be but fair to say a few words about those" of England ; but in 

 good honest truth it would be superfluous to descant at the 

 present day on the beauties of Windermere, or the general lake 

 scenery of Cumberland and Westmoreland: it has been described 

 by hundreds of tourists, and its praises have been sung by its 



