30 FOOD OF FISHES. 



Voracity and Cannibalism of Fishes. 



The innumerable swarms of fishes thus produced, 

 constitute, particularly when young, the chief portion 

 of the food of those that are full grown, and even these 

 often meet each other in fierce opposition, when the 

 fish which has the widest throat comes off victorious 

 by devouring his opponent. They even make no dis- 

 tinction of their own species, and char kept in a pond 

 are observed to devour their young. The great lake 

 trout * also, according to Sir William Jardine, is ex- 

 ceedingly rapacious, and, after attaining the weight of 

 three or four pounds, appears to feed almost exclusively 

 on small fish, not sparing even its own young. A small 

 trout of this species, not weighing more than a pound 

 and a half, will often dash at a bait not much inferior 

 in size to itself; and instances are recorded of larger fish 

 following with eager eye, and attempting to seize upon 

 others of their own kind after they had been hooked, 

 and were in the act of being landed by the angler. It 

 may readily be inferred from this, that the smaller fish 

 must make good baits, as they certainly do, for catching 

 the larger. 



The most voracious fish on record is the pike, which 

 though it can, by spare feeding, be habituated to sub- 

 sist on very little aliment, will, when full dieted, acquire 

 the power of devouring thirty or forty roaches a day. 

 One of these fish has been known to choke itself in at- 

 tempting to swallow another of its own species, that 



(I) In Latin, Salmoferox, JARDINE. 



