70 THE FOWLER IN IRELAND. 



to the lakes of three counties. I caught 380 

 of these fish, but none over twenty pounds, and 

 few near it. The two heaviest pike I ever saw, 

 and which were carefully weighed in my presence, 

 turned the scale at thirty-eight pounds two ounces, 

 and forty pounds, respectively. The first is now in 

 my possession, and was taken near Scariff, co. Clare, 

 in Lough Derg, 1877; tne second is the property 

 of Colonel Gason, of Kilteelagh, co. Tipperary, 

 near which place the fish was caught, also in Lough 

 Derg, and in the same year as the other. Both 

 were preserved by Glennon, of Dublin. There 

 was for many years a very large pike in a fishing- 

 tackle shop-window on the Dublin Quays, said to 

 weigh forty pounds, but I cannot vouch for its 

 weight being correct, as I can with regard to those 

 first named. The truth-loving scales are a trying 

 ordeal for these big fish to undergo. There is no 

 doubt that pike play dreadful havoc with the broods 

 when small, as the latter cruise about the rushes, 

 where these fish are so fond of basking in summer. 

 Such giants as those above described would attack 

 full-grown Teal, I have no doubt ; and what could 

 be a more tempting morsel to a large pike, a fish 

 that is always ready to rush at a moving object with 

 tiger-like ferocity, if at all to its fancy ? 



A pike was brought to me a few years since 

 with an immature female Tufted Duck stuck in its 

 mouth, and which, not being able to eject on seizing, 

 had choked it. This fish weighed eighteen pounds, 

 but had it been in condition would have been 

 nearer thirty. A friend described to me how last 

 summer he was fishing for perch in his private lake, 



