Chapter XXV: The Yellow Perch

_Perca Flavescens._--The Yellow Perch has, as his name indicates, a predominant yellow color on his sides; there are a number of dark vertical bars over the back, and the pectorals, ventrals and anal are orange. The gill-cover is serrated beneath and armed with a long spine, and the fore gill-cover has a toothed margin. There are two dorsals; the ventrals are beneath and slightly behind the pectorals, and the teeth are minute. The greatest weight is four or five pounds. The fin-rays are as follows--

D. 13.2.15; V. 1.5; A. 2.8; C. 17-5/5.

Unfortunately, this fish, equally despised by the gourmand and the sportsman, abounds in our fine ponds and lakes, that ought to be devoted to his noble congener, the black bass. He will take the fly if it is allowed to rest in the water, and after hooking a trout that had fouled in the weeds, I have found a perch on the second fly. He spawns in April or May, seeking the sandy shore, near projecting roots, where there is a depth of a foot of water. I have seen them crowded together, male and female, jostling and following one another round and round through the roots, pressing out milt and spawn, and so busily engaged that they could be taken with the net or the hand. In mere wantonness and desire to diminish their numbers I destroyed all I could, hanging them on strings with the spawn streaming from them. The eggs, which were almost transparent, were in the water in masses, kept together by a glutinous substance, and each marked with a black spot, and could be taken up in the net, straining slowly through the meshes.

Yellow perch will take worm or minnow, preferring the former, and it is probable destroy numbers of young trout. Their flesh is coarse, white and tasteless. They are pursued only by boys and ladies.