112 



to red, under the influence of the solar ray, 

 was actually perceptible to the eye; that how- 

 ever they altered their colour in the course of a 

 few hours was very obvious. 



ANECDOTES OF THE PIKE. 



Sir Francis Bacon, in his History of Life and 

 Death, observes the Pike to be the longest 

 lived of any fresh water fish, and yet he com- 

 putes it to be not usually above forty years, 

 and others think it to be not above ten years ; 

 but Gesner mentions a Pike taken in Swede- 

 land, in the year 1449, with a ring about his 

 neck, proving him to have been more than two 

 hundred years old. 



All Pikes that live long prove chargeable to 

 their keepers, because their life is maintained 

 by the death of so many other fish, and even 

 those of their own kind. 



This fish is called by some writers the tyrant 

 of the rivers, or fresh- water wolf, by reason of 

 his bold, greedy, devouring disposition, which is 

 so keen, that Gesner relates that a man going to 

 a pond (where it seems a Pike had devoured all 

 the fish) to water his rnule, had a Pike bite his 



