"WITH NOTES ON THEIR FISH. 125 



Mr. Rooper describes an occurrence which places the froj^j anecdote 

 I have just related altogether in the shade. He writes as follows* : — 

 "A gentleman who has no wish to communicate his name to the 

 Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, once threw 

 thirty young sparrows and starlings, one after the other, to a 

 large pike in a lake, and he seized and swallowed the last with as 

 much avidity as the first." Notwithstanding the gross appetite 

 of tlie pike, he appears equally to appreciate more delicate morsels. 

 He will seize young ducks when swimming on the stream, pull them 

 under in a moment, and instantly devour them. I have lost many 

 of my own ducklings in this manner. The pike is said to grow at 

 an unusually rapid pace ; he will attain to the length of eight or 

 ten inches in his first year, and will grow at the rate of 4 lbs. per 

 year for six successive years. f 



As far as my own experience will guide me, I am inclined to 

 think that the pike of the Bulborne and the Gade attain to a 

 greater size at present than they did forty years ago. Is it possible 

 that the garbage which drains from our towns and villages, so 

 fatal to the existence of the delicate trout, affords a very congenial 

 food to the omnivorous pike ? 



The Common Eel {A»f/Hil!a acutirostris). — Eels are tolerably 

 abundant in both the Bulborne and the Gade, but they prefer 

 muddier streams, and are, I believe, far more numerous in the 

 adjacent Colne. At Hunton Bridge, eels weighing as much as three 

 and three-and-a-half pounds have not unfrequently been taken. 

 Every one knows the distinguishing characteristics of the eel. 

 The words "as slippery as an eel" have passed into a proverb, 

 and its extraordinary tenacity of life is equally notorious. It is 

 probable that it may owe the latter characteristic to its semi- 

 amphibious qualities. If kept in a damp place, it will live, out of 

 water, for several days ; and the fact that it will occasionally leave 

 the water and cross the damp grass of a meadow to a distant pond 

 is, I think, generally admitted. 



In describing the loach I have already mentioned the extra- 

 ordinary muscular irritability which distinguishes ground fish. 

 This is the case to a very remarkable extent with the common eel, 

 and is said to explain its acute susceptibility to the influence of 

 atmospheric electricity. During a thunderstorm eels always dis- 

 play the greatest activity, and it is a curious fact that on these 

 occasions they invariably "run" "down stream." It is conjec- 

 tured that they do this to secure, if possible, the safety of deeper 

 water ; but the event is often found to falsify the anticipation. 

 At most of the dams and sluices on rivers in which eels abound, 

 traps are provided for catching them, and their career down-stream 

 is suddenly arrested by these fatal contrivances. At mill-dams 

 on the Thames large quantities of eels are often enough taken 

 in a single night ; and our President in his paper read last year 



* ' Thames and Tweed,' p. 58. 

 t Hamilton, loc. cit, vol. ii, p. 80. 



