JACK. 



141 



when well supplied with food. The appetite of this fish is 

 very great, and, from its being so fierce, it has been called the 

 pirate of the rivers. It is not easily satisfied with food, and 

 numerous extraordinary stories of the pike's powers of eating 

 and digesting have been from time to time related. I remem- 

 ber, when at school at Haddington (seventeen miles from Edin- 



JACK IN HIS ELEMENT. 



burgh), of seeing a pike that inhabited a hole in the " Lang 

 Cram" (a part of the river Tyne), which was nearly triangular 

 in shape, supposed to be the exact pattern of its hiding-place, 

 and which devoured every kind of fish or animal that came in 

 its way. It was caught several times, but always managed to 

 escape, and must have weighed at least twenty-five pounds. 

 Upon one occasion it was hooked by a little boy, who fished 

 for it with a mouse, when it rewarded him for his cleverness 



