238 NATURE STUDY. 



The Story of Pike. 



BY UNCLP: NED. 



CHAPTER III. 



The season of the year when Pike was hatched was v^ery 

 favorable for him. There was an abundance and variety 

 of food all about him. By the time he had absorbed the 

 yolk-mass upon which he lived and grew at first, the warm 

 water of the lake was swarming with tiny living things. 



Not long after he had begun to look about for things to 

 eat and to think a great deal about them, a great shoal of 

 minnows was hatched neai by. They were very small in- 

 deed, much smaller than Pike was when he was hatched. 

 Not one was more than half an inch long. Each had a 

 big head for so small a fish, and the bod}^ tapered back to 

 the end of the tail, which was so thin and small that it 

 seemed to be almost no tail at all. The fishes moved by 

 little wiggles of the whole body, and, all together, headed 

 the same way. There were so many of them, and they 

 crowded .so that they looked like a big black patch over 

 the sand in the shallow water. 



Pike left off eating wrigglers now, and gave most of his 

 time and attention to these minnows. Indeed, it was for- 

 tunate for him that the minnows came when they did, for 

 a queer thing had happened to the wrigglers and they 

 had all gone awa}-. 



Pike had become so accustomed to seeing the wrigglers 

 twisting about in the water or resting and breathing at 

 the surface, that he supposed they would always do so. 



It never occurred to him that there would come a change 

 some day. If he had learned to notice carefully, as he 

 did afterwards, he would have seen that the wrigglers be- 

 gan to change in shape. They were more clumsy, and 



