THE PIKE. 247 



time lacerating its body with its sharp talons, will very soon kill 

 it ; after which the eagle is said " to float with it to the shore, 

 towing it in the air, or occasionally on the surface of the water with 

 its wings."* 



The pike is truly styled by Walton, " a solitary, melancholy, 

 and a bold fish : melancholy, because he always swims and rests 

 alone, and never in shoals as roach and dace and most other fishes 

 do ; and bold, because he fears not a shadow, or to see or to be 

 seen of any body, as the trout and chub and most other fish do." 

 But notwithstanding that the selfish and unsocial habits of the 

 pike would from choice cause him to shun the society of his 

 fellows, yet self interest and the hope of gain, which so often 

 brings men nearer together than they mutually desire, in like 

 manner causes pikes to take up their stations very near to each 

 other, where such situations are favorably situated for pouncing on 

 their prey ; but this they do from no neighbourly love they bear 

 to one another, but each for his own individual advantage. 



In localities therefore that are adapted to the above purposes, 

 I have often taken two or three pikes, and sometimes more out of 

 the same pool, whilst I have toiled over a considerable portion of 

 land and water, elsewhere without moving a fish. This however I 

 have remarked ; that when I have taken many pikes out of the 

 same pool they have rarely been large fish ; and have usually been 

 of a corresponding size with each other ; so as to be nearly even 

 matched as to force; bearing out the principle that the even ba- 

 lance of power is conducive to peace ; as these fishes, like neigh- 

 bouring states of equal strength, who knowing that the result of 

 a contest must be a doubtful one, and even a conquest hardly won, 

 are from a fear of the consequences checked from commencing acts 

 of aggression which no sense of justice would have restrained 

 them from, could such acts have been successfully carried into 

 effect, and persevered in with impunity. This appears from the 

 circumstance of a large pike being generally found alone ; he 

 being strong enough to drive all his weaker brethren from his 

 neighbourhood ; each of whom in proportion to the relative 

 strength they bear to one another retaliates in like manner upon 



Se British NaturalUt, Vol. 1, p. 119. 



