144 
THE PERCH. 
come very fat. Of the nof.itia) of large perch, we have be- 
fore observed on one taken in the Serpentine River, in Hyde 
Park, which weighed nine pounds, and another of eight 
pounds, taken in Dagenham Breach, by a Mr. Curtis. In 
* The Angler’s Sure Guide,’ mention is made of the portrait 
of one caught near Oxford, which was twenty-nine inches 
long, and of a proportionate depth ; and supposing such mea- 
sure to have been correct, the weight must have been very 
great. 
“ The perch is gregarious, in the strictest sense of the 
word : a number herd together by a sort of compact, which 
confines them to situation, to size, and to habit as well as 
manner; all fire alike; the same hole contains them, and the 
same swim maintains them; and if one should be taken, it is 
the Angler’s own fault if the whole do not share the same 
fate. This circumstance is remarkable in a fish of prey, since 
predatory fish in most instances are solitary ; and it is even 
more singular in one so voracious as to swallow its own eye, 
as heretofore stated.* 
The common mode of angling for perch in ponds, is with 
a light stifi rod, similar to that used in worm-angling for trout, 
* The following is thocircumstanco alluded to: “ Somo time ago, two 
young gentlemen of Dumfries, while fishing at Dulswinton Loch, having 
expended their stock of worms. &c., had recourse to the expedient of 
picking out the eyes of the dead perch they had taken, and attaching 
thorn to their hooks — a bait which this fish is known to take us readily as 
any other. One of the perch cuught in this manner struggled so much 
when taken out of the water, that the hook had no sooner been loosened 
from its mouth than it came in contact with one of its own eyes, and ac- 
tually tore it out. Iu the struggle, the fish slipped through tho holder’s 
fingers, and again escaped to its native element. The disappointed fisher, 
still retaining tho eye of the uquatic fugitive, adjusted it on tho hook, aud 
again committed his line to tho waters. After a vary short interval, on 
pulling up the line, he was astonished to find the identical perch that had 
eluded his grasp a few minutes beforo, and which literally perished in 
swallowing its own eye.” 
