PIKE. 75 



gently into the water to about the depth of four feet, when he spread out his hands to attempt 

 to swim ; instantly a large fish came up and took his hand into his mouth as far up as the 

 wrist, but finding he could not swallow it, relinquished his hold, and the boy turning round, 

 prepared for a hasty retreat out of the pond ; his companions who saw it, also scrambled out 

 of the pond as fast as possible. My son had scarcely turned himself round when the fish came 

 up behind him and immediately seized his other hand, crosswise, inflicting some very deep 

 wounds on the back of it ; the boy raised his first-bitten and still bleeding arm, and struck 

 the monster a hard blow on the head, when the fish disappeared. The other boys assisted him 

 to dress, bound up his hand with their handkerchiefs, and brought him home. We took him 

 down to Mr. Brown, Surgeon, who dressed seven wounds in one hand ; and so great was the 

 pain the next day, that the lad fainted twice ; the little finger was bitten through the nail, and 

 it was more than six weeks before it was well. The nail came off and the scar remains to 

 this day." And what became of the Pike? Retribution quickly followed this would-be boy- 

 devourer! "A few days after this occurrence, one of the woodmen was walking by the side 

 of the pond, when he saw something white floating. A man, who was passing on horseback, 

 rode in, and found it to be a large Pike in a dying state ; he twisted his whip round it and 

 brought it to shore. Myself and my son were immediately sent for to look at it, when the 

 boy at once recognised his antagonist. The fish appeared to have been a long time in the 

 agonies of death ; and the body was very lean and curved like a bow. It measured forty-one 

 inches, and died the next day, and was, I believe, taken to the castle at Windsor." 



There is an old myth that the Pike will spare the Tench, his piscine "physician." The 

 following stor)% communicated by Dr. Genzik to Mr. C. Pennell, will show that he does not 

 hesitate to attack a human physician, or at any rate a medical student. "In 1829 I was 

 bathing in the swimming school at Vienna with some fellow-students, when one of them — 

 afterwards Dr. Gouge, who died a celebrated physician some years ago — suddenly screamed 

 out and sank. We all plunged in immediately to his rescue, and succeeded in bringing him 

 to the surface, and finally in getting him up on to the boarding of the bath, when a Pike 

 was found sticking fast to his right heel, which would not loose its hold, but was killed and 

 eaten by us all in company the same evening. It weighed thirty-two pounds. Gouge suffered 

 for months from the bite." 



Referring back to the Pike sparing the Tench, because the former fish is grateful for 

 supposed services rendered by the latter in rubbing itself against the Pike's wounds, and 

 thus healing it by the application of mucus, I should hardly have thought it necessary to 

 refute the story, were it not that some modern authors are inclined to think there is some 

 truth at the bottom of it. 



"The Pike, fell tyrant of the liquid plain, 

 With ravenous waste devours his fellow train ; 

 Yet, howsoe'er by raging famine pined. 

 The Tench he spares — a medicinal kind; 

 For when, by wounds distrest or sore disease. 

 He courts the salutary fish for ease, 

 Close to his scales the kind physician glides 

 And sweats a healing balsam from his sides." 



That Pike may prefer one kind of fish to another is not only probable in theory, but 

 known as a fact, and It is likely enough that this "fell tyrant of the liquid plain" would 

 rather dine on a fat Gudgeon or bright-scaled Dace than on a slimy Tench ; but it is not 

 true that the Pike refuses to swallow Tench; \ have frequently caught Pike when trolling 

 with a small Tench, and others have the same experience. Moreover, the late Rev. W. Bree 

 gives the following evidence, which is pretty conclusive:—"! turned into a pit fifty-seven 

 small Tench, and upwards of three score Crucian Carps; and not a great while afterwards, 



