246 THB PIKE. 



visited the Esquimaux countries, such occurences are by no means 

 unfrequent among those people, when a chance offers of gratifying 

 their enormous appetites, for to satisfy them seems impossible. 



Captain Lyon, in his interesting account of this extraordinary 

 race, states that he has seen several of them when provisions have 

 been sufficiently abundant, after gorging themselves to the very 

 throat, lying about like men dead drunk amongst heaps of blubber, 

 seal's entrails, and filth, with what they were unable to swallow 

 actually hanging out of their mouths ; outdoing the very hogs in 

 gluttony, and exhibiting human nature in its most degrading form. 

 Then it was that he was forcibly struck with the fact, that men 

 may even make greater beasts of themselves by immoderate eating 

 than by drinking to any excess ; the latter of which is disgusting 

 enough in all conscience. 



But a pike, though so gluttonous a fish, is generally found to 

 discriminate between such food as is suitable to him or otherwise ; 

 having been observed to reject a toad, though he would greedily 

 seize upon every frog that was cast towards him ; so that their 

 indiscriminate mode of feeding must be attributed rather to neces- 

 sity than choice. 



In those countries in which eagles abound, we frequently hear 

 of deadly encounters taking place between the monarchs of the arr 

 and those of the fresh waters, which often terminate fatally to both 

 parties. The eagle is always the aggressor, pouncing on the pike 

 as the latter lies basking near the surface, and fixing his sharp 

 talons firmly in the fish, often succeeds in lifting him into the air; 

 but the weight of the fish aided by his struggles, soon carries 

 them both back to the water, when the eagle becoming exhausted, 

 and unable to disengage his talons, so long as the fish continues to 

 move onwards, is drawn under water and drowned, and thus the 

 pike eventually comes off the conqueror : when the fierce hold of 

 the enemy relaxing with death, the body floats off, and the fish soon 

 recovers from the wounds of the previous encounter, though the 

 scars may still remain as honorable evidence of his prowess. 



But the event terminates otherwise where the fish is but a small 

 one ; for even should the latter by the violence of its struggles 

 prevent the eagle from bearing it away, yet by keeping a fast 

 hold on it, unless the fish can manage to pull the bird under water, 

 the eagle by continuing to strike with stunning force with its 

 powerful wings, and driving its beak into the fish's scull, all the 



