"Nor let the Muse, in her award of fame,
Illustrious Perch, unnoticed pass thy claim;
Prince of the prickly cohort!"

AUSONIUS (Trans.).

"The Perch with pricking fins, against the pike prepared."

M. DRAYTON.

"The bright-eyed Perch, with fins of Tyrian dye."-POPE.
"The greedy Perch, bold-biting fool."
Translation of" Complimentary Ode to Isaac Walton."

few "spinous

HERE we have a representative of the very few " finned" fish (Acanthopterygii) which inhabit our waters. He belongs, as his name implies, to the Percida family. And a very large and a very terrible family it is, distributed over almost all parts of the world, in salt water as

well as fresh. Its most dangerous members are the "stinging weever," or "sea dragon ;" the "labrax," or

sea wolf" (after whose name, in a Latin or Greek gradus, is found such a string of epithets denoting his rapacity, voracity, and fierceness, that they make one's very blood run cold); and the "sky-gazer" of the Mediterranean, whose form is as hideous, as his ichthyological title, Uranoscopos hemerocatus," is sesquipedalian. The general description of the Percile family runs thus :-" Oblong body, invested with hard, rough scales, serrated or spinous gill-flaps, and jaws, vomer, and palate well furnished with teeth;" to which should be added,*“branchiostegous rays," which, being interpreted, means that the perch has bony, spinous fins, as some of us, perhaps, know-as some ack have heretofore known-by painful experiment. I hardly know which is the least easy to handle with any substantial comfort-a perch, a red-hot coal, or a lively hedgehog. A distinguishing feature of the perch is his second dorsal fin.

Dr. Badham gives us the origin of the word "Perch;" and on this point happily there are no labyrinthine entanglements or etymological and almost endless verbal wildernesses into which we can be led, as is the case of the unde derivatur of the terms "Jack" and "Pike." Here all is plain sailing, and the whole course is traversed quickly and without a tack. "Perch" (also written "pearch"); French, perche; Latin, Spanish, and Italian, perca, from the Greek perke, the feminine of the adjective perkos (πéρкos), which signifies some dark colour, though it is as difficult to say of what exact shade as it is to define the ancient purpureus, usually translated "purple," or the "glaucomatic" hue of Minerva's eyes.

Perkos is used to signify the dark shade which olives and grapes assume when ripening, and a Homeric eagle is called perknos, from its dark plumage. Hence our "perch" is so called from the dark sable bands which bar his back and sides. There is, then, no question to be raised as to the origin and meaning of the word "perch." But I shall take the liberty of saying that I don't like this naming of the fish at all. Who were the etymological authorities, or godfathers and godmothers, answerable for it I neither know nor care, nor whether it was enacted by royal authority, or by some infallible Pope, ex piscatoriâ cathedrâ ; but I protest against it as a bit of most feeble piscine nomenclature. Of one thing I am sure-namely, that when Adam had a grand parade of birds, beasts, and fish, "to see what he would call them," as he carefully took the beautiful river perch in his hand, he admiringly gave it some better name than merely "Dusky-fish." The old Anglican name by which it was known was a thousand times better than "perch." It was Bears; Dutch, Baars; German, Barsch; i. e. "Bars"-the bar or barred-fish.

I hope I shall not be thought trifling with what to me is always "a solemn subject," viz. etymology, when I ask why certain persons are called "perky"? This is a "slang" term now, but "to perk" was a good old English verb, signifying the same as the modern "to perch." Of course thoughtless etymologists will say that the term "perky" is applied to persons who are "perched" up, or "perch" themselves up above their fellows, and so assume a "perchitivity," and a certain unapproachability. And I know that Shakespeare speaks of being "perk'd up," and that Churchill, in The Rosciad, inveighs against persons

with "awkward briskness

that Pope sings,

66

· perking on a throne," and

'If after all you think it a disgrace

That Edward's miss thus perks it in your face."

All this may point to "perky" being connected with perched in its bad sense. But I shall suggest that "

"perky" as an adjective illustrative of character, or rather of manner, with a dash of looks in it, takes its origin from our Perch and his characteristics! "Perky," as I take it, is an epithet almost exclusively applicable to the female sex, when it has not transgressed a certain limit of years, and that it indicates a somewhat unapproachable and "spinous" little party, difficult and even disagreeable to handle, if handled unjudgmatically. Such a little party is generally associated with a certain compactness of beauty and form, and thus is, like our perch,-" Perky."

One more etymological memorandum. The author of The Haven of Health says that the "perch" is so called “by a figure of antiphrasis—quia nulli piscium parcet”. "because he does not spare any kind of fish." This is lucus a non lucendo with a vengeance. Our friend Pat does his best to back up this bit of etymology by calling the fish a parch."

Leaving etymology, let us proceed to admire our Perca fluviatilis. He is handsome, and beautiful too; though I admit his cast of facial expression is bad and vicious, reminding me somewhat of the wicked look which I always see in a barbel. The downward cut of his lips has perhaps something to do with his bad expression, the lower one seeming to "hang" like that of an idle rough who listlessly lets a heavy pipe depress one corner of his mouth. Still he (the perch I mean, not the rough) is both hand

some and beautiful. His symmetry is perfection, and in this respect I hardly know a fish I admire more. He is resplendent with colour, both in harmony and contrast. The dark transverse bars zebra-wise striping his paleshaded green body, his beautifully-arranged scales, the bright vermilion of his anal and caudal fins, the golden irides of his eyes, and his white belly make a picture which perfectly fills the ichthyologically admiring eye. When looked down upon in clear still water he looks transparent, the dark bars causing the illusion. And this reminds me of many happy summer days on Slapton Lea, when I have watched from over the boat's side the shoals of perch beneath me as countless as in Windermere, and admired their transparent beauty till I thought it almost a sin to attempt to ensnare them. It is a pity that the older a perch gets the more he loses both his beauty of shape and colour; but this is more or less the way of all flesh and fish.

Dr. Badham mentions several ichthyological peculiarities of the perch; there are one or two specially worthy of record. All perch, he notes, open the mouth wide when taken out of the water, and die with open gills; and hence one of the family, conspicuous for the firstnamed peculiarity, was called by the Greeks "Channe," or the "Gaper." And in connexion with this gaping propensity it is noticed that the perch gapes most when most hungry, and actually "brings his stomach up into his mouth, as an angry camel is said to do." Galen has ingeniously explained this strange stomachic Orexis (if I may thus describe it), saying that "as famished persons stretch forth their hands to snatch at victuals, so the stomach of this fish protrudes the gullet for the same