THE PERCH. 225 



purpose ;" and he adds, " generally 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 efforts 

 after food." Anglers may have noticed how easily the 

 stomach of a perch is drawn into his mouth when 

 attempting to get the hook out. I had often noticed 

 it, but did not know the reason why till I found it in 

 Badham's Fish Tattle. It would seem, then, that this 

 exhibition of the stomach is not in consequence of the fish 

 having clean gorged the bait, but because the stomach 

 has come at least " half-way " to meet the bait (?) . The 

 Channe, too, has the distinction of being a hermaphrodite, 

 containing both sexes in its own person, the roe being 

 half soft and half hard, and thus is self-concipient. Hence 

 Ovid says, — 



" Ex se 

 Concipiens Channe gemino fraudata parente." 



I believe our own perch, if not every species of perch, 

 is thus bisexual ; but though these fish are thus denied 

 the connubial bliss enjoyed by monogamous pikes and 

 pikesses, they may be said to be fairly reproductive of 

 their kind, a single half-pound fish having been found to 

 contain as many as 280,000 eggs. They deposit their 

 spawn in strings like festoons of pearls, several eggs 

 being contained in one membrane, on weeds and stones, 

 towards the end of April or beginning of May. The 

 vagaries of the Percidce are almost endless ; but none 

 beat that of the eccentric member of the family which in 

 India and other Eastern countries comes out of his native 

 element and climbs trees and perches among the branches. 

 (No, my young and rash etymologist, this is not "the 



Q 



