ALLEGED MIGRATION OF PIKE. 33 



sickly individuals of the carp stock, who would 

 either not survive for the three years, or would 

 show no growth proportionate to their consumption 

 of food. On the other hand too large a number 

 of pike would reduce the total weight of carp, which 

 would thus have been converted into pike-flesh, 

 instead of remaining as carp. It has often puzzled 

 naturalists how newly-made lakes and ponds, or 

 streams known to have never contained pike, should 

 suddenly have been stocked with them. Some 

 naturalists, including the late Frank Buckland, con- 

 sidered it was by water-fowl such as ducks, coots, 

 moorhens, or dabchicks, which, feeding among 

 aqueous weeds where vivified spawn had been 

 deposited, on taking flight to other waters con- 

 veyed some of the spawn, which is glutinous, stick- 

 ing between their feathers or to their feet ; or, 

 may be, it passed from them in an undigested state, 

 and by either of these means it was disseminated. 

 The rivers Darenth and Wandle when I was a lad 

 contained no jack or pike ; now they are infested 

 with them ; and the trout-fishing has suffered in 

 consequence. The Saturday Review of November 

 7th, 1 888, in an article on " Water Wolves," stated 

 that pike certainly have a curious instinct which 

 sometimes causes them to embark on land-journeys 

 in search of food and water, if deprived of either of 

 these necessaries to their existence. 1 Mr.Newnham, 

 an English resident at Antwerp, in order to test 

 this theory of migration, made two new ponds, and 

 stocked one with pike and the other with small 

 fresh-water fish, such as dace, roach, &c. After 

 two days he had both ponds emptied, when it was 



1 I hope I may not be understood to endorse this state- 

 ment. ED. 



D 



