6 THE PIKE. 



no intention of taking it fairly so that he can be hooked. 

 He will often allow himself to be hauled about, and even 

 dragged up to the surface of the water, only, with a flap of 

 his tail, to drop the bait from his jaws, and roll over again 

 into the deep water; and you could almost fancy 

 there was a mocking grin during the process on his 

 villainous looking face. I think it is a good job that the 

 pike are more often off the feed than on, because if they 

 were always hungry there would, in waters were they are 

 plentiful and carefully preserved, be nothing else left with 

 them either alive or dead, for most assuredly everything else 

 that could be eaten would be speedily cleared out ; for one 

 authority tells us that a jack when on the feed will eat his 

 own weight in gudgeons and other small fish in the course 

 of a few days. The Rev. Mr. Manley, a gifted writer on the 

 habits and history of our fresh water fishes, says of the pike, 

 " that in reality nothing comes amiss to him. He has no 

 more taste, in the true sense of the word, than he has feel- 

 ing. All's fish, at least food, that comes into his net. Cer- 

 tainly when left to his natural devices he is a sort of gentle- 

 man who would eat the toast on which asparagus is placed 

 to drain, the tinfoil in which Rochefort cheese is enwrapped, 

 the crust of a game pie, or the envelopment of an Oxford 

 brawn. The only wonder is how he can manage to live at 

 all in certain waters. The truth is he is endowed with the 

 power of long fasting, which doubtless he often exercises, 

 either from necessity or choice." But in spite of his great 

 voracity, there are certain things that he does not care much 

 about ; he does not like a toad, though he is dearly fond of 

 a frog. It has also been said that he will have nothing to 

 do with a perch ; perhaps he may not care about them much, 

 and would pass them by if plenty of other food existed in 

 the water, but I knew one very large pond in the county of 

 Lincoln, that contained nothing else, as far as we could make 

 out, except jack, perch, eels, and a few tench; and yet a 

 small perch about the length of your finger was the only 

 bait, except an occasional frog, that was any use at all to the 

 pike of that water. And then again we hear that he won't 

 have anything to do with a tench ; but I knew a gentleman 

 who brought down to a well known pike water a can of small 



