SIZE OF FLIES. 227 



you use a gorge, though the large bait be seized, 

 it is ten to one but that he leaves it without an 

 attempt to pouch it, unless he be strong on feed ; 

 though there is no doubt his throat would be 

 capacious enough for the purpose, had he been 

 inclined to make the experiment. A fish often 

 seizes a passing prey, merely, as it seems to me, 

 by way of a punishment for its audacity in ap- 

 proaching too near. You often see fish take 

 things into their mouths, and then instantly eject 

 them, though the next hour they would seize and 

 swallow the same in nature and substance. Yet 

 it is only when much pressed with hunger that 

 they attempt to swallow a bait large in propor- 

 tion to their own size. I certainly was once 

 trolling with a gorge for pike, with a good sized 

 gudgeon, when 1 saw a perch not longer than 

 nine inches, and not twice the length of the bait, 

 seize it. She (for I found it to be a female full 

 of spawn, and nearly as deep as long) ran with 

 it in shore, and I, thinking it impossible that she 

 would attempt to swallow it, sang out for the 

 landing net to entrap her with it at once from 

 among the rushes beneath me. This I and my 

 companion did, and when we got her out, I was 

 indeed surprised to find that she had attempted 

 to swallow it, and was fairly hooked, but neces- 

 sarily " stuck at the tail." Yet I am satisfied she 

 must have been driven by hunger to commit such 



q2 



