174 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 



puzzling. It is not easy to account for its presence in certain 

 waters, and its absence from neighbouring and similar ones. 

 For example, in my native parish of Mochrum, Wigtownshire, 

 there are ten natural lakes, from two hundred acres down to one 

 acre in extent. Some of these are basins scooped out of the 

 glacial till, others are depressions in the prevailing Lower 

 Silurian rock beds. Pike swarm in eight of these lochs, and 

 are wholly absent from two of them. Long may they remain 

 so, for their room is occupied by numbers of very good trout. 

 Still more remarkable is the capricious distribution of pike in 

 the southern uplands of Scotland. They infest most of the 

 waters, both running and still, but here and there occur lakes, 

 such as Loch Grennoch, abounding in trout and char, and the 

 two Glenhead lochs in Glentrool, where no pike are found. 

 The fry, of course, find their way wherever a rill runs or 

 a drain trickles, but some of these hill lochs are situated so 

 high that the pike therein must be descended from an ancestry 

 established when the land levels were different. In such an 

 elevated and desolate region, the presence of these fish can 

 scarcely be attributed to the agency of man. 



Pike, nearly allied as they are to the Salmonid<e^ ought to 

 be excellent food, and some there be that profess to find them 

 so. As for me, I have tried hard to relish them in 

 * various forms, but have never been able to overcome 

 a strong repugnance to the flesh. Nor is this prejudice, as it 

 might easily be in a mere matter of taste, over which reason 

 exercises no control. This was proved one day in a very 

 practical way at my own table, where pike are tabu. I helped 

 myself to what appeared to be excellent fried fillet of cod ; 

 the first mouthful was unaccountably nasty ; I looked more 

 closely at the fish and detected a thin forked bone, unmistakable 

 sign of pike. And pike it was ; my son having been 

 disporting himself on the lake that day, had persuaded the 

 cook to serve some of his spoil. Therefore, despite the 

 authority of many eulogists, my opinion of pike is this : 



