PLATE LII. 
learn that the Perch is very abstemious in vi'inter, and will not readily 
take the bait except in the middle of tlie day when the weather proves 
■'varm and fine. He says they love to accompany one another, and 
go together in troops, and “ that if tliere be twenty or forty in a hole, 
they may be all caught at one standing, they being like the tvicked of 
the world, not afraid though their fellows and companions perish in 
their sight.” 
“ The baits for this bold fish (continues Walton) are not many; 
I mean he will bite as well at some or at any of these three, as at any, 
or all others whatsoever: a worm, a minow, or a little frog, of 
which you may find many in hay-time ; and of worms, the dunghill- 
Worm, called a brandling, I take to be best, being well scoured in 
moss or fennel ; or he will bite at a worm that lies under cow-dung. 
With a blueish head. And if you rove for a Perch with a minow, 
Aen it is best to be alive, you sticking your hook through his back-fin ; 
or a minow with the hook in his upper lip, and letting him swim up 
^nd down about mid-water, or a little lower, and you still keeping him 
m about that depth by a cork, which ought not to be a very little one : 
^nd the like way you are to fish for the Perch with a small frog, your 
hook being fastened through the skin of his leg, towards the upper 
Part of it ; and lastly, 1 will give you but this advice, that you give the 
^*erch time enough when he bites, for there was scarce ever any angler 
^kat has given him too much.” 
The months of May and June are the spawning season for the 
^^rch, when a single female of this prolific race, of a moderate si/c, 
kave been known to lay between two and three hundred thousand 
; these are all retained together by means of a glutinous sort oi 
m. V. 
