The Compleat ^Angler 



their belly, but first into some place betwixt, and then chew it, or 

 digest it by degrees after, which is called chewing the cud. And, 

 doubtless, pikes will bite when they are not hungry ; but, as some think, 

 even for very anger, when a tempting bait comes near to them. 



And it is observed that the pike will eat venomous things (as some 

 kind of frogs are) and yet live without being harmed by them ; for, 

 as some say, he has in him a natural balsam, or antidote against all 

 poison : and he has a strange heat, that though it appears to us to 

 be cold, can yet digest or put over any fish-flesh, by degrees, without 

 being sick. And others observe that he never eats the venomous 



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frog till he have first killed her, and then (as ducks are observed to 

 do to frogs in spawning time, at which time some frogs are observed 

 to be venomous) so thoroughly washed her, by tumbling her up and 

 down in the water, that he may devour her without danger. And 

 Gesner affirms that a Polonian gentleman did faithfully assure him, 

 he had seen two young geese at one time in the belly of a pike. 

 And doubtless a pike, in his height of hunger, will bite at and devour 

 a dog that swims in a pond ; and there have been examples of it, or 

 the like ; for, as I told you, " The belly has no ears when hunger 

 comes upon it." 



The pike is also observed to be a solitary, melancholy, and a bold 

 fish : melancholy because he always swims or rests himself alone, and 

 never swims in shoals or with company, as roach and dace and most 

 other fish do : and bold, because he fears not a shadow, or to see or 

 be seen of anybody, as the trout and chub and all other fish do. 



And it is observed by Gesner, that the jaw-bones, and hearts and 

 galls of pikes are very medicinable for several diseases ; or to stop 

 blood, to abate fevers, to cure agues, to oppose or expel the infection 

 of the plague, and to be many ways medicinable and useful for the 

 good of mankind ; but he observes that the biting of a pike is 

 venomous, and hard to be cured. 



And it is observed that the pike is a fish that breeds but once a 

 year, and that other fish (as namely loaches) do breed oftener, as we 

 are certain tame pigeons do almost every month ; and yet the hawk 

 (a bird of prey, as the pike is of fish) breeds but once in twelve 

 months. And you are to note, that his time of breeding, or 



