in ichthyology. See PERCA.

The perch affords good sport for the angler. The best time for their biting is when the spring is over, and before the heats of summer come on. At this time they are very greedy; and the angler, with good management, may take at one standing all that are in the hole, be they ever so many.

The proper baits are a minnow or young frog; but the worm called the brandling, well flowered, is also excellent at all times of the year. When the perch bites, he should always have a great deal of time allowed him to swallow the bait.

The perch will bite all day long, if the weather be cloudy; but the best time is from eight to ten in the morning, and from three till six in the afternoon. The perch is very abstemious in winter, and will seldom bite in this season of the year; if he does at all, it is in the middle of the day: at which time indeed all fish bite best at that season.

If the bait be a minnow, which is the bait that affords most diversion to the angler, it must be fastened to the hook alive, by putting the hook through the upper lip or back-fin; it must be kept at about mid-water, and the float must be a quill and a cork, that the minnow alone may not be able to sink it.

The line must be of silk, and strong; and the hook armed with a small and fine wire, that if a pike should take the bait, as is not unfrequently the case, he may be taken. The way to carry the minows or small gudgeons alive for baits is this: A tin-pot is to be provided, with holes in the lid, and filled with water; and the fish being put in this, the water is to be changed once in a quarter of an hour by the holes, without taking off the lid at any time, except when the bait is to be taken out.

A small casting-net, made for these little fish, should be taken out with the perch-tackle; and one or two casts of this will take baits enough for the day, without any farther trouble. When the bait is a frog, the hook is to be fastened to the upper part of the leg. The best place for the fishing for perch is in the turn of the water near some gravelly scour. A place of this kind being pitched upon, it should be baited over-night with lobworms chopped to pieces; and in the morning, on going to it, the depth is to be regularly plumbed, and then the hook is to be baited with the worm or other bait; and as it drags along, the perch will soon seize upon it. PEARL-Glue, the name of a kind of glue, of remarkable strength and purity, made from the skins of peaches.