Capturing parameters in Perl CGI

["George Morey" <George.Morey@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I invoke my CGI with the following passing it 'param'.

<form method=get action="/cgi-bin/dbtest4?parm">

I currently have the following code in my Perl CGI to try and decode
what is occuring:

$query = new CGI;  
print $query;      

The print results in the following

CGI=HASH(0x200215a8)

Assuming that $query once initialized is a pointer to some data I
attempt to use it as such and get bupkiss.

Can you suggest what is occurrring and how I might capture the passed
parameter to use for control flow in my program?