The fourth day-continued On the Perch Piscator and Venator Piscator.The Perch is a very good and very bold biting fish.He is one of the fishes of prey that, like the Pike and Trout, carries his teeth in his mouth, which is very large: and he dare venture to kill and devour several other kinds of fish.He has a hooked or hog back, which is armed with sharp and stiff bristles, and all his skin armed, or covered over with thick dry hard scales, and hash, which few other fish have, two fins on his back.He is so bold that he will invade one of his own kind, which the Pike will not do so willingly; and you may, therefore, easily believe him to be a bold biter.
The Perch is of great esteem in Italy, saith Aldrovandus: and especially the least are there esteemed a dainty dish.And Gesner prefers the Perch and Pike above the Trout, or any fresh-water fish: he says the Germans have this proverb, " More wholesome than a Perch of Rhine ": and he says the River-Perch is so wholesome, that physicians allow him to be eaten by wounded men, or by men in fevers, or by women in child-bed.
He spawns but once a year; and is, by physicians, held very nutritive;yet, by many, to be hard of digestion.They abound more in the river Po, and in England, says Rondeletius, than other parts: and have in their brain a stone, which is, in foreign parts, sold by apothecaries, being there noted to be very medicinable against the stone in the reins.These be a part of the commendations which some philosophical brains have bestowed upon the freshwater Perch: yet they commend the Sea-Perch which is known by having but one fin on his back, of which they say we English see but a few, to be a much better fish.
The Perch grows slowly, yet will grow, as I have been credibly informed, to be almost two feet long; for an honest informer told me, such a one was not long since taken by Sir Abraham Williams, a gentleman of worth, and a brother of the angle, that yet lives, and I wish he may: this was a deep-bodied fish, and doubtless durst have devoured a Pike of half his own length.For I have told you, he is a bold fish; such a one as but for extreme hunger the Pike will not devour.For to affright the Pike, and save himself, the Perch will set up his fins, much like as a turkey-cock will sometimes set up his tail.
But, my scholar, the Perch is not only valiant to defend himself, but he is, as I said, a bold-biting fish: yet he will not bite at all seasons of the year; he is very abstemious in winter, yet will bite then in the midst of the day, if it be warm: and note, that all fish bite best about the midst of warm day in winter.And he hath been observed, by some, not usually to bite till the mulberry-tree buds; that is to say, till extreme frosts be past the spring; for, when the mulberry-tree blossoms, many gardeners observe their forward fruit to be past the danger of frosts; and some have made the like observation of the Perch's biting.
But bite the Perch will, and that very boldly.And, as one has wittily observed, if there be twenty or forty in a hole, they may be, at one standing, all catched one after another; they being, as he says, like the wicked of the world, not afraid, though their fellows and companions perish in their sight.And you may observe, that they are not like the solitary Pike, but love to accompany one another, and march together in troops.