332 NOTES ON FISH AND FISHING. 



Percidce. The ruff is very like the perch in form and habits, 

 but his marking is almost exactly that of the gudgeon. 

 He might almost be called a Perco-gobio. So suggestive 

 is he of both these fish that some naturalists have con- 

 sidered him a hybrid between them. 



As he is a bottom swimmei', and will take almost any 

 kind of worm, he is often caught when angling for gud- 

 geon, though, unlike the gudgeon, he has a slight penchant 

 for mud and weeds. He cannot be called a pretty fish, 

 having a particularly melancholy cast of countenance ; but, 

 like the gudgeon, his flesh is firm and sweet, what little 

 there is of it on his bony structure : and Dame Juliana 

 Berners is justified in saying that " the ruff is a right 

 holsome fysshe." His average length is three to four inches, 

 and he hardly ever exceeds five. Why he was called the 

 t: Pope " I cannot imagine ; but it is easy enough to see 

 the propriety of the appellation "Ruff," which is the old 

 English form of " rough." Our pope, with his spinous 

 back fin, and from his general appearance, is certainly a 

 " r<mg7i-looking customer," and therefore well named 

 enough, as is also the bird of the same title, the ruff, 

 from his " rough " collar of feathers. Ruff, when kept 

 in an aquarium, get so deeply attached to one another that 

 if one of a pair dies, or is taken away, the other frets to 

 death, at least so it is said. 



The Loach is a little fish of some interest, and occasio- 

 nally taken when fishing for gudgeon, which it somewhat 

 resembles in general appearance, though prettier, I think, 

 with his more mottled sides and barred tail. Like the 

 gudgeon, he belongs to the Carp family and the genus 

 Gobitis (which word is a diminutive of Gobios — gudgeon). 

 Hence he is called Vyprinus cobitis, and by some naturalists 



