THE COMPLETE ANGLER 143 



And it is observed, that the pike will eat venomous 

 things, as some kind of frogs are, and yet live without 

 being harmed by them ; for, as some say, he has in him 

 a natural balsam, or antidote against all poison. And 

 he has a strange heat, that though it appears to us to be 

 cold, can yet digest or put over any fish-flesh, by degrees, 

 without being sick. And others observe that he never 

 eats the venomous frog till he have first killed her, and 

 then, as ducks are observed to do to frogs in spawning 

 time, at which time some frogs are observed to be venom- 

 ous, so thoroughly washed her, by tumbling her up 

 and down in the water, that he may devour her without 

 danger. And Gesner affirms that a Polonian gentleman 

 did faithfully assure him, he had seen two young geese 

 at one time in the belly of a pike. And doubtless a pike, 

 in his height of hunger, will bite at and devour a dog 

 that swims in a pond ; and there have been examples of it, 

 or the like : for, as I told you, " The belly has no ears when 

 hunger comes upon it." 



The pike is also observed to be a solitary, melancholy, 

 and a bold fish : melancholy, because he always swims 

 or rests himself alone, and never swims in shoals or with 

 company, as roach and dace and most other fish do ; 

 and bold, because he fears not a shadow, or to see or be 

 seen of anybody, as the trout and chub and all other fish 

 do. 



And it is observed by Gesner, that the jaw-bones and 

 hearts and galls of pikes are very medicinable for several 

 diseases ; or to stop blood, to abate fevers, to cure agues, 

 to oppose or expel the infection of the plague, and to be 

 many ways medicinable and useful for the good of man- 

 kind : but he observes, that the biting of a pike is venom- 

 ous, and hard to be cured. 



And it is observed, that the pike is a fish that breeds 

 but once a year ; and that other fish, as namely loaches, 

 do breed oftener, as we are certain tame pigeons do almost 



