300 PIKE AND PIKE-FISHING. 



of its extension and increase. The pike of Teviot, being 

 well supplied with food, is of quick growth. I have 

 ascertained pretty accurately that the average weight of 

 a two-year-old fish runs from three to five pounds. It 

 is also a plentiful breeder, the leaf or waim of roe fre- 

 quently taken by me from the inside of a highly-preg- 

 nant female pike exceeding, in point of size, what is 

 generally found in a grilse or salmon of equal weight, 

 and in the same advanced state of pregnancy. The ova 

 or pellets, moreover, are much smaller, and consequently 

 a great deal more numerous. They are to boot, in all 

 likelihood, better defended during the spawning season 

 from the attacks of trout and eels ; and, in fact, every 

 circumstance in connection with their growth and 

 breeding subserves to impress the belief, that the pike, 

 on many parts of Teviot, is in the fair way of adding 

 to its depredations, and becoming numerically stronger 

 and better intrenched. As lately as the year 1845, I 

 captured several of these fish in portions of the river 

 which until then had continued altogether free from 

 their presence. One of these was previously a favourite 

 minnow-cast for trout and salmon excelled, in fact, by 

 none on the river. It is now, as a resort of the former, 

 nearly deserted; and even by the latter cannot be 

 visited with security, for large and jealous pike will not 

 hesitate to assail and drive away a fish so defenceless as 

 the salmon really is, when interfering with what they 

 esteem their acquired territories or strongholds. In the 

 cast I allude to, I lost one day four minnow-tackles in 

 succession, all of them having been bit through, directly 

 above the hooks, by different pike. On attaching my 

 bait, at length, to a small gimp-set tied on for the occa- 

 sion, I secured two of the gang which, though by no 

 means large ones, being only four pounds weight each, 



