OF GREAT BRITAIN. iii 



Equally numerous, if not perhaps more credible, 

 are the testimonies to the fact that the Pike, des- 

 tructive and insatiable to all else, has yet that 

 " grace of courtesy " left in him that he spares to 

 molest his physician, even when most pressed by 

 hunger ; perhaps upon the same principle as that 

 ■which guides his prototype, the shark, in sparing 

 the useful and friendly little pilot fish. Amongst 

 other angling authorities, Oppian, Walton, Hollin- 

 shed, Bowlker, Salter, Williamson, Hofland, and 

 Fitzgibbon, all acknowledge to more or less faith 

 in the truth of the assertion. Salter says, " I have 

 known several trimmers to be laid at night, baited 

 with live fish. Roach, Dace, Bleak, and Tench, 

 each about 6 or seven inches long ; and when 

 those trimmers were examined in the morning, both 

 eels and Jack have been taken by hooks baited 

 with any other fish than Tench, which I found 

 as lively as when put into the water the preceding 

 nieht, without ever having been disturbed. This 

 has invariably been the case during my experience ; 

 neither have I met with one solitary instance to the 

 contrary related by any of my acquaintance, who 

 have had numerous opportunities of noticing the 

 singular circumstance of the perfect freedom from 

 death or wounds which the Tench enjoys over 

 every other inhabitant of the liquid element, arising 

 from continual conflicts with each other." 



I have quoted some portion of the preceding 

 from the "Angler-Naturalist," in which I also 



