VORACIOUS PIKE. 223 



A feather dropped would have fallen straight 

 to the earth. 



I was paddling very quietly out into the lake 

 from the portage when I noticed something 

 moving very gently on the surface a few yards 

 ahead of the canoe. Getting closer I made this 

 out to be the fin of some fish moving sluggishly. 

 Pushing the canoe further in advance with 

 noiseless knife strokes of the paddle, I got close 

 enough to see it was a pike with a whitefish half 

 protruding from its mouth and almost dead 

 from suffocation. ^ 



This, I thought, is a rare occurrence for a 

 person to witness, and gently reaching out my 

 hand I inserted my thumb and finger into the 

 eye sockets and lifted both into the canoe. 



On getting ashore at the next portage I 

 forced open the jaws of the pike, and the white- 

 fish dropped from them. The half that had been 

 inside the pike's mouth was quite decomposed, 

 while the part out in the water was compara- 

 tively fresh. 



In trying to swallow this fish, which was 

 two-thirds the pike's own length, he had dis- 

 tended his jaws to the utmost, but they only 

 opened enough to reach near the back fin, and 

 here fixing his teeth in savage fury the biter 

 had bitten more than he could eat. He was 

 equally unable to disgorge himself as he was 



