OF GREAT BRITAIN. 75 



growth, in open waters, does not much exceed 

 half a pound. The grounds of this conclusion are 

 briefly as follow : Pike spawn in March or April : 

 in' June, when Pike-fishing commences, I have 

 not unfrequently taken, and seen taken, with 

 the net, small Jack of about an ounce, or a little 

 more, in weight ; in September, again, I have 

 constantly taken them, with a minnow, of three or 

 four ounces ; and in January and February speci- 

 mens of from Jive to seven oitnces ; whilst I have 

 never within my memory caught the smaller-sized 

 fish at the later periods, or vice versa, thus point- 

 ing clearly to the inference that at these seasons 

 there were young Jack of those respective sizes, 

 and none others in other words, that the different 

 sizes represented the different stages of growth. 

 These I believe to be the fish of about f Ib. of 

 the following season. 



The Pike is a true cosmopolitan in his feeding. 

 Fish, flesh, and fowl are alike acceptable to him. 

 Animal, mineral, and vegetable his rapacity de- 

 vours them all. Lord Walsingham writes to me 

 that he once caught a pike with a hare's foot, and 

 on another occasion with a dead rat! Nothing, in 

 short, that he can by any means get into his 

 stomach comes amiss to him ; and imperial man 

 himself has on more than one occasion narrowly 

 escaped being laid under contribution to his larder. 

 His own species enjoy no immunity from this uni- 

 versal rapacity ; on the contrary, it has been asserted 



