90 MALACOP. ABDOM. PIKE FAMILY. 



that it is the only fresh- water fish which is un- 

 doubtedly common to the two continents; and it 

 is curious that it is unknown to the westward of 

 the Rocky Mountains, upon the coast that ap- 

 proaches nearest to the Old World. It is very 

 familiarly known throughout the British Isles, pre- 

 ferring rivers of a sluggish character, but also thriv- 

 ing in lakes and ponds. It is a great feeder, and 

 is said thus to grow fast, and speedily to attain a 

 considerable size. Bloch says that the young reach 

 the length of eight or ten inches in the course of 

 their first year, to twelve or fourteen in their second, 

 and to eighteen or twenty in their third, and there 

 are proofs on record that from this last size, Pike, if 

 well supplied with food, will grow at the rate of 

 four pounds a year for six or seven successive years. 

 Pliny considered the Pike as the longest lived, and 

 likely to attain the largest size of any fresh-water 

 fish. From two to three feet is a common size; 

 and it often reaches a much greater. Mr. Pennant 

 mentions that the largest fish of this species he had 

 ever heard of in England weighed thirty-five pounds, 

 although the one mentioned by Dr. Plat, as taken 

 in the Thames, which measured an ell and two 

 inches, that is, forty-five inches, or almost four feet, 

 must have weighed much more. (Plat's Hist, of 

 Staffordshire, 246, a. Walton, 136.) Mr. Yarrell 

 states that Pike have been killed in Horsea Mere 

 from twenty-eight to thirty-four pounds each. In 

 Scotland these dimensions have sometimes been 

 doubled. Dr. Grierson mentions one killed in Loch 



