78 EAGLE AND PIKE. 



astonished at what had happened, which previously I had 

 considered impossible, I remained perfectly quiet for a time, 

 and in the course of a few minutes saw the manner in which 

 the remaining two cautiously watched each other, and waited 

 for an opportunity of making an onset. The larger pre- 

 sently made a charge at the smaller one, which the latter 

 avoided by its dexterity, and then only retired for a short 

 distance. A second attempt, however, made shortly after- 

 wards, succeeded perfectly well. The two victors, who had 

 preyed on their brethren, then paraded separately about the 

 vessel, gorged to bursting with their copious meal. In the 

 course of a couple of hours the exposed tails of their swal- 

 lowed companions had disappeared." 



The Sea-eagle and the Osprey, as said in my former 

 work, not unfrequently pounce down upon a fish when 

 basking near the surface of the water; if too heavy for 

 them to bear aloft, it not unfrequently happens that, unable 

 to extricate their claws, they are carried under water and 

 drowned. 



The Rev. M. Moller, rector of the parish of Mellby, in 

 Westgothland, informed me that, one misty morning, when 

 he was engaged in taking up a night-line, he heard at a little 

 distance a very great disturbance in the water; on rowing 

 to the spot, he found to his surprise that it arose from a 

 combat between an eagle and an immense pike, for the bird, 

 which had made a stoop on to the fish, was neither able to 

 disengage its talons, nor to bear the fish aloft. The clergy- 

 man had no gun unfortunately, but seizing hold of a stout 

 stake, he was about to deal a death-blow to the belligerents, 

 when by a desperate effort, the pike not only managed to 

 clear himself from the hook to which he was attached, but 



