THE PIKE. 573 



an exceedingly slender, neat, and compact form, but whether they are 

 employed in swimming in the closed or expanded state I have been un- 

 able to determine." 



The ancients were well acquainted with the Flying Fish, and in their 

 narratives even improved upon its powers, as was customary with the 

 voyagers of those days, and asserted that as soon as night came on this 

 fish left the ocean, flew ashore, and slept until morning safe from the 

 attacks of its marine enemies. The generic name of Exocmtus — liter- 

 ally, "a sleeper-out" — refers to this supposed habit. About thirty 

 species of Flying Fish are known, belonging mostly to the Mediterra- 

 nean Sea, but others occur in the North Sea and the Atlantic and Pa- 

 cific Oceans. 



The fierce and voracious Pike has well earned its titles of Fresh- 

 water Shark and Riv^er Pirate, for, though perhaps not one whit more 

 destructive to animal life than the roach, gudgeon, and other harmless 

 fish, the prey which it devours are of larger size, and its means of de- 



The Pond or Common Pike (Esox lucius). 



struction are so conspicuous and powerful that its name has long been 

 a byword for pitiless rapacity. 



The Pike is found in almost every English river, and, although sup- 

 posed to have been artificially introduced into our country, has multi- 

 plied as rapidly as any indigenous fish. The Pike is the master of the 

 waters in which it resides, destroying without mercy every other fish 

 that happens to come near its residence, none seeming able to escape 

 except the perch, whose array of sharp spines daunts even the voracious 

 Pike from attempting its capture. As if to show that the Pike really 

 desires to eat the perch, and is only withheld from so doing by a whole- 

 some dread of its weapons, there is no better bait for a Pike than a 

 young perch from which the dorsal fin has been removed. It will even 

 feed upon its own kind, and a young Pike, or Jack, as it is then called, 

 of three or four inches in length, has little chance of life if it should 

 come across one of its larger kindred. 



After hatching the growth of the young Jack is extremely rapid, 

 and, according to Bloch, it will attain a length of ten inches in the 

 first year of its life. If well fed, the growth of this fish continues at 

 a tolerably uniform rate of about four pounds a year, and this increase 

 will be maintained for six or seven successive years. 



