He will bite at a paste made of brown bread and honey, or at a marsh-worm, or a lob-worm; he inclines very much to any paste with which tar is mixt, and he will bite also at a smaller worm with his head nipped off, and a cod-worm put on the hook before that worm. And I doubt not but that he will also, in the three hot months, for in the nine colder he stirs not much, bite at a flag-worm or at a green gentle; but can positively say no more of the Tench, he being a fish I have not often angled for; but I wish my honest scholar may, and be ever fortunate when he fishes.
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 hath, 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.