chap, via.] THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 145 



other beasts, taking their meat, not out of their 

 mouth immediately into their belly, but first into 

 some place betwixt, and then chew it, or digest it 

 by degrees after, which is called chewing the cud. 

 And doubtless Pikes will bite when they are not 

 hungry, but, as some think, even for very anger, 

 when a tempting bait comes near to them. 



And it is observed, that the Pike will eat venom- 

 ous 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 appear 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 venom- 

 ous 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 

 venomous, — 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, me- 

 lancholy, and a bold fish : melancholy, because he 



