Early in the month of May the mother perch lays her eggs, which she fastens in long bands to the leaves of water-plants. Their number is very great, over 280,000 having been taken from quite a small perch of only about half a pound in weight!
The climbing perch of India, notwithstanding its name, is not a true perch, but belongs to quite a different family. It is famous for its power of leaving the water and traveling for a considerable distance over dry land. It does this in the hot season if the stream in which it is living dries up; and if you were to live in certain parts of India you might perhaps meet quite a number of these fishes shuffling across the road by means of their lower fins, and making their way as fast as possible toward the nearest river!
But how do they manage to remain out of the water for so long?
Well, the fact is that fishes can live for a long time out of the water if their gills are kept moist. In some fishes, such as the herring, this is not possible, because their gills are made in such a way that they become dry almost immediately. But the climbing perch has a kind of cistern in its head, just above the gill-chambers, which contains quite a quantity of water. And while the fish is traveling over land this water passes down, drop by drop, to the gills, and keeps them constantly damp.
When this fish has been kept in an earthenware vessel, without any water at all, it has been known to live for nearly a week!
The Carp
Another fish which will live for quite a long time out of the water is the carp, which has often been conveyed for long distances packed in wet moss.
This fine fish is a native of the Old World, where it is found both in rivers and lakes, but prefers still waters with a soft muddy bottom, in which it can grovel with its snout in search of food. During the winter, too, it often buries itself completely in the mud, and there hibernates, remaining perfectly torpid until the return of warmer weather. It is not at all an easy fish to catch, for it is so wary that it will refuse to touch any bait in which it thinks that a hook may be concealed. And if the stream in which it is living is dragged with a net, it just burrows down into the mud at the bottom and allows the net to pass over it.
Owing to this crafty and cunning nature, the carp has often been called the fresh-water fox.
The carp is a very handsome fish, being olive brown above, with a tinge of gold, while the lower parts are yellowish white. It sometimes weighs as much as twenty-five pounds, and has been known to lay more than 700,000 eggs! It is domesticated in many parts of North America and other countries.