146 



FISH 6ALLERY. 



that these records may refer to the Sea-perch or Bass {Morone 

 labrax, 511, Wall-case 13), which is sometimes found in tidal 

 rivers, but can be readily distinguished by its having 8 to 

 10 spines in the front dorsal fin, whereas the true Perch has 

 14 to 16. 

 Pope. The Pope, or Ruffe, Acerina cernua, 509, is an obscure little 



fish, found in England, but not in Scotland or Ireland, common 

 in Scandinavia, Russia and Siberia. In England it scarcely 

 reaches six inches in length, but in Siberia it grows much larger. 

 It differs from the Perch in the incomplete separation of the 

 spinous dorsal fin from the soft dorsal, and in the border of the 

 preoperculum being armed with 10 or 12 spines and the operculum 

 with a single spine. It is not known how the name " Pope " 

 came to be applied, but the fish has suffered a great deal of per- 

 secution in consequence of its unfortunate appellation, for during 

 the Protestant movement in England, when hatred of everything 

 savouring of Roman Catholicism was rife, the people of the 

 midland towns used to catch the unoffending fishes, fix a cork on 

 the dorsal spines of each, and put them back into the canal or 

 stream until, as Frank Buckland describes it, the surface of the 

 water for miles was covered with bobbing corks. Hampered 

 by the corks and consequently unable to catch any food, the 

 unhappily-named fishes were left to die a lingering death. 

 Sandra. The largest fishes of the family Percidae are- the Pike-perches, 



Fig. 66. — Pike-perch, Lucioperca sandra. 



such as the Sandra, Lucioperca sandra, 508, and fig. 66, which is 

 a common fish in the lakes and rivers of the continent, although 

 absent from Britain, and grows to a length of three or four feet in 



