THE PERCH.
This gregarious fish is angled for with a worm or minnow. It is a bold biter during the warm months of the year, though very abstemious in the winter season. When a shoal is met with, great sport is frequently obtained. A small cork float is used, and the bait is hung at various depths, according to circumstances, a knowledge of which can only be obtained by practice. In angling near the bottom, the bait should be frequently raised nearly to the surface, and then allowed gently to sink again. When the weather is cool and cloudy, with a ruffling breeze from the south, perch will bite during the whole day. The best hours towards the end of spring are from seven to eleven in the morning, and from two to six in the afternoon. In warm and bright summer weather, excellent times are from sunrise till six or seven in the morning, and from six in the evening till sunset.
The Perch is one of the most beautiful of the fresh water fishes, but is too familiarly known to need description. It inhabits both lakes and rivers, but shuns salt water. Pallas, however, is said to have stated in his Zoographia Russo-Asiatica (a work still unpublished), that about spawning time both Pike and Perch are found in a gulf of the Caspian Sea, about thirty verstes from the mouth of the Terek. The female deposits her eggs, united together by a viscid matter, in lengthened strings—a peculiarity noticed by Aristotle. Spawning takes place in April and May, and the number of eggs sometimes amounts to near a million. The Perch occurs all over Europe, and in most of the northern districts of Asia. It is easily tamed, and if kept moist will live for a long time out of water. It sometimes attains to a great size, but the majority are smallish fishes. Pennant alludes to one said to have been taken in the Serpentine River, Hyde Park, which weighed nine pounds. But even one half of that weight would be anywhere regarded as extraordinary, and a Perch of a pound is looked upon as a fine fish. The flesh of this species as an article of food is wholesome, though neither rich nor high flavoured. The months of April, May, and June, are those during which it is least esteemed.
The Basse, or Sea Perch, (Perca labrax, Linn. Labrax lupus, Cuv. and Val.) is a fish of a chaste and pleasing aspect, though destitute of the strongly contrasted coloring of the preceding, from which it is also distinguished by an abundance of small teeth upon the tongue. It is abundant in the Mediterranean. It is a very voracious fish, remarkable for the size of its stomach, and was known to the ancients by the appropriate name of lupus. It takes a bait freely (onisci, broken shell-fish, etc.) when angled for during flood-tide, with strong tackle, from projecting rock or pier. The ordinary size ranges from 12 to 18 inches, although Willoughby has stated that it sometimes attains the weight of 15 pounds. Its flesh is excellent.