PIKES. 223 



bours. Heat spoils his appetite ; cold sharpens 

 it."* 



A few examples of the indiscriminate voracity 

 that characterizes this monster of the rivers, we 

 select from the multitude that are on record. 



A writer in the New Sporting Magazine asserts 

 that on a summer evening he has more than once 

 seen a brood of young wild ducks devoured by a 

 Pike in the course of a few minutes. An unfor- 

 tunate guinea-pig, that had died in giving birth to 

 a litter of young ones, was thrown with its brood 

 into a piece of water in which were many very 

 large Pike, when the whole were seized and swal- 

 lowed by one of these tyrants ; an incident which 

 gave the keeper occasion humorously to boast 

 that he had seen a Pike which devoured at a meal 

 a sow ivith a Utter of pigs. At times this fish will 

 ravenously seize almost anything that is offered it. 

 In a small stream near London, a Pike lay bask- 

 ing near a cottage, when a gentleman walking 

 round his garden saw it ; he procured his rod and 

 line, and for want of other bait desired the cook 

 to cut him off a large slice of veal. With this he 

 baited his hook, and dropping it gently on one 

 side of the fish, the voracious creature instantly 

 seized it, and was captured. It was found to 

 weigh ISlbs. 



The voracity of the Pike is shown by a circum- 

 stance of no infrequent occurrence in Sweden. 

 Large Perch often swallow the baited hooks of 

 stationary night-lines, and then enormous Pike 

 gorge the hooked Perch in their turn. In this 

 case, though the Pike himself is seldom or never 

 actually hooked, yet on the fisherman's drawing 

 in his line, the Perch sets so fast in the greedy 



* Hand-book of Angling, 336. 



