102 COMMON PIKE. 



The voracity of the Pike is commemorated by all 

 ichthyological authors. Mr. Pennant observes that 

 he himself has known one that was choaked in at- 

 tempting to swallow one of its own species which 

 proved too large a morsel. It will also devour 

 water-rats, and young ducks which happen to be 

 swimming near it. In a manuscript note to a copy 

 of Plott's History of Staffordshire, and which Mr. 

 Pennant afterwards found was inserted, on good 

 authority, by a Mr. Plott of Oxford, the following 

 highly singular anecdote is recorded. " At Lord 

 Gower's canal at Trentham, a Pike seized the 

 head of a swan as she was feeding under water, 

 and gorged so much of it as killed them both : the 

 servants, perceiving the swan with its head under 

 water for a longer time than usual, took boat, and 

 found both swan and pike dead." But there are 

 instances, sa}^s Mr. Pennant, still more surprising, 

 and which indeed border a little on the marvellous. 

 Gesner relates that a famished Pike in the Rhone, 

 seized on the lips of a mule that was brought to 

 water, and that the beast drew the fish out before 

 it could disengage itself: he adds that people have 

 been bitten by these voracious animals while they 

 were washing their legs, and that they will even 

 contend with the Otter for its prey, and endeavour 

 to force it out of his mouth. 



The smaller kind of fishes are said to shew the 

 same uneasiness and detestation at the presence of 

 a Pike as the smaller birds do at the sight of a hawk 

 qr an owl, and when the Pike, as is often the case, 

 lies dormant near the surface of the water, are ob- 



