EARLY DAYS 5 



held some pike — ^thc disappearance of ducklings and 

 otlier phenomena had to be accounted for. 



With grown-up assistance I made an attempt to 

 catch one of these alleged pike, using live roach which 

 came from the pond and such primitive tackle as 

 was available. Wc got plenty of runs — in fact, 

 it was a rare thing for the bait to be in the water 

 for more than half an hour without being attacked. 

 I had small knowledge of pike in those days, or I 

 should have suspected the curious and vacillating 

 behaviour of the float, its bobs and dips and brief 

 inconclusive movements of a foot or two at a time. 

 But, as things were, w^hen, after many i-uns which 

 came to nothing, wc succeeded in landing a great 

 eel of some three pounds, I was much surprised. Wc 

 got others afterwards, but nothing much bigger, 

 though one or two ])reakages suggested the presence 

 of monsters in the pool. What has remained in 

 my mind chiefly, however, is not the sum total of 

 success, but the broad facts of the case. These 

 were that the baits we used were not less than seven 

 or eight inches in length, that the eels would attack 

 them in broad daylight and also in mid- water, and, 

 further, that this cannot have been for lack of food 

 because the pond, as I have said, was plentifully 

 stocked with roacli. All this proves conclusively, 

 to my thinking, what a ravening creature the eel 

 is. I am not at all surprised that the eels of New 



