THE PIKE, JACK, OR LUCE. 147 



that the pike is passionately fond of ; amongst these are the following : 

 A swan's head and shoulders, a mule's lip, a Polish damsel's foot, a 

 gentleman's hand, tender kittens before their eyes are open, and the 

 fleshy part of a calf's head. At the same time, there are things which 

 the fish abhors. " In the midst of a banquet of frogs throw him a toad, 

 and he turns from it with loathing ; put a slimy tench near his muzzle, 

 and he will recoil from the nauseous creature," and so on in respect to the 

 stickleback and perch. It is needless for me to comm ent on this. A 

 pike will take a young toad almost as well as a frog, and, if not very 

 fond of a tench, it does not loathe it. It readily takes a perch, and I 

 have found heaps of stickleback in both trout and pike. 



Before passing on to other considerations there is one circumstance 

 which occurs to me in connection with its life-history which is interesting, 

 as showing that this tyrant of the water has other enemies occasionally 

 besides his lord and master, man. Perhaps I cannot do better than 

 give it in the words of Mr. Blakey. He says : "Mr. Lloyd informs us that 

 it is not an uncommon thing in the north of Europe for even the voracious 

 pike to become the prey of a feathered enemy. Eagles frequently pounce 

 on these fish when basking near the surface ; but when the pike has been 

 very large, he has been known to carry the eagle under water, in which 

 case the bird, being unable to disengage his talons, has been drowned." 

 Capt. Eurenius informed the same author he was once an eye witness of a 

 performance of this kind. In this instance the eagle succeeded in lifting 

 its prey to some distance above the water, but the combined weight 

 and struggles of the fish soon drew both down into it. Soon after the bird 

 was seen at the surface of the water uttering piercing cries, and apparently 

 striving to free its talons. It seemed in vain, however, for presently 

 the eagle disappeared in the water to rise no more. Eagles have 

 been found dead with talons tightly clenched in the dead fish washed 

 ashore. 



The pike is probably so named because of its shape ; possibly the length 

 and shape of its fangs had somewhat to do with the name. The word pike 

 (which is represented by the French pique and the German pieke), as is 

 well known, means, according to Johnson, "along wooden shaft or staff, 

 with a flattened pointed steel head." This is sufficiently explanatory of 

 the probable derivation of the fish's first patronymic. As for the term 

 "jack," there are so many meanings attached to the word that it is utterly 

 impossible to decide its origin in this particular case ; possibly it may have 

 come from the Norman jacque, or the German jacke, a coat of mail, but 

 nothing can be finally settled about the matter. The term luce also is 

 equally obscure as to its parentage, but probably is from the Greek lukos, 

 and is usually applied to a pike when full grown (vide Johnson) Query, 



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