CHAPTER II.

_THE PERCH FAMILY._

BY JOHN BICKERDYKE, M.A.

The thick-set, golden-bronze, dark-barred, hog-backed fish known as the PERCH has many striking characteristics, and is remarkable, among other things, for the vast number of its relations scattered all over the world. So numerous, indeed, are its cousins that ichthyologists have had to divide the Perch Family into a large number of groups. There are various species of perch found, as a matter of fact, in the fresh-waters and on all the coasts of the temperate and tropical regions.

The COMMON PERCH, which is widely distributed over Europe, Northern Asia, and North America, is properly an inhabitant of rivers, lakes, and ponds, but sometimes descends to brackish water. It runs up to about 5 lbs. in weight, and is carnivorous, eating most kinds of fish small enough for its swallow, including the fry of its own species, which are, in some waters, an excellent bait.

In England perch spawn in the spring, the eggs being held in a band-like mass of gelatinous matter deposited on weeds or the roots of trees not far below the surface of the water. The spawn, as a matter of fact, is often collected by fish-culturists and hatched out. Swans and water-fowl generally eat the eggs by the million, and wherever perch are preserved these birds should, so far as possible, be kept from the water during the spawning-season. At Henley and other places on the Thames those interested in fishery preservation place wire netting round the boughs and weeds where perch have spawned, to prevent the eggs being eaten by swans and ducks.

Perch are usually termed voracious fish, but when large are extremely shy and difficult of capture. There is a story told of a hungry little lake-perch which had its eye hooked out by accident. The angler, leaving the eye on the hook, lowered it into the water again, and a moment after hauled out a one-eyed perch!

Among the species of perch found in British waters are the RUFFE, or POPE, a very small and common river-fish of no great value; the BASS, a fine sporting sea-fish, which comes up the estuaries of rivers to spawn, and is much sought after by the amateur sea-fisher; the COMBER, or GAPER, a fairly common fish on the coasts of the West of England; a rare sea-fish known as the DUSKY PERCH, caught occasionally off the South of England; the STONE-BASS, also called the WRECK-FISH, from its habit of following wreckage in the sea; and, lastly, the DENTEX, a rare species, not often caught off the British coasts, which attains the weight of about 70 lbs.

On the Continent there is the PIKE-PERCH, a fish having the appearance of a cross between a pike and a perch, and growing to 25 or 30 lbs.; this voracious species is found in the lakes and rivers of the temperate northern zones, and is much esteemed for food. In the tropics there are a number of true SEA-PERCHES, which rarely enter fresh-water; they include the ANTHIAS, most beautifully coloured with pink and yellow, of which there are between 100 and 200 species. Some of the tropical sea-perches grow to an enormous size, and there are instances recorded of bathers having been attacked by them at Aden. Several monsters are stuffed in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington. Among the coral-islands live many very beautifully coloured sea-perches of various species. Perhaps the most remarkable of all is the BOAR-FISH, or BASTARD DORY, which has a prolonged snout, no doubt used for getting out its food from the crannies among rocks and other awkward places.

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