Notes on fish and fishing by Manley John Jackson

Author:Manley, John Jackson
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Fishing, Fishes
Publisher: London, S. Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington
Published: 1877-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

NOTE VIII.

THE PERCH. (Perca Fluviatilis.)

" 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. Deayton.

" The bright-eyed Perch, with fins ofTyrian dye."-— Pope.

" The greedy Perch, bold-biting fool." Translation of " Complimentary Ode to Isaac "Walton."

Here we have a representative of the very few "spinous-finned' J fish (Acanthopterygii) which inhabit our waters. He belongs, as his name implies, to the Pcrcidce 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, JJra-noscopos hemeroccetus," is sesquipedalian. The general description of the Percidce 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 derivator 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 perhe, the feminine of the adjective perkos (Trip/cos), 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 eare, nor whether it was enacted by royal authority, or by

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.