1 50 ON SURREY HILLS. 



a fine enough fish for the table, but as a game 

 sporting fish the pike is all that can be desired. 

 When he has smashed up everything, and left me 

 considering the vexatious incidents that are apt to 

 attend his capture, I have found him more than I 

 could desire. Now and again great brutes, about 

 which the rustics have legends, rush from their 

 haunts in the roots of flag, reed, and tangle, and 

 seize a jack of three or four pounds by the middle 

 one that the angler was in the act of landing- 

 close to the bank. Then, for a brief space, may be 

 seen a tearing struggle ; smash go the first and 

 second joints of your rod and a part of your line, 

 with the hooked jack, and all is over. I have 

 known some younger members of the rustic angling 

 community to be so unnerved by mishaps of the 

 kind that nothing could induce them to fish again 

 in or near the water where this had occurred. They 

 sum the creatures up as "dangerous to get near 

 with either hand or foot." For my part I prefer 

 the middle-sized fish for sport and for the table. 



One of the pike's favourite haunts I know well. 

 Changes have taken place since I first remember it, 

 but it is not greatly altered. The old mill, as grey 



