Our Native Pike 27 



Wales in which pike do not occur (as there are in most 

 other parts of the country), there are also many isolated 

 pieces of water in which the fish is found, and where there 

 would scarcely seem to be any likelihood of its having been 

 introduced artificially. One such place exists close at hand 

 on the moor between Ffridd Helyg-y-Moch and the Ddwallt. 

 The mossy tarn which until recent years existed there, but 

 has now been reduced by drainage to a mere bog, intersected 

 by a widish ditch, and containing a few peaty holes, used 

 formerly to contain numbers of pike, some of which sur- 

 vived until only a year or two ago, if indeed the race is yet 

 entirely extinct, despite the present circumscribed area of 

 available water. 



I am no great enthusiast for pike fishing, and have 

 certainly no intention of attempting to demonstrate that 

 where pike do not already occur in trouting waters it would 

 be advisable to introduce them. Such an idea may be 

 dismissed at once as on a par with the fantasy that would 

 encourage the presence of owls in a pheasant-rearing field 

 for the sake of the rats they kill. But, admitting so much, 

 it is yet doubtful to my mind whether a few pike in a 

 water, where trout are not over-fished, are to be regarded 

 as so altogether inimical as is generally supposed. If coarse 

 fish, particularly fish like perch, are numerous in the water, 

 and cannot be got rid of (as unfortunately is impossible by 

 any means short of draining away the water) I should 

 certainly never advocate the extermination of pike. A large 

 sheet of water, such as Bala Lake is, abounding with many 

 different kinds of fish, including pike, perch, and salmonidae, 

 of which it is agreed that the latter are most worthy of 

 encouragement and protection, may very roughly be com- 

 pared to a deer-forest overrun with hares, rabbits, eagles, 

 and foxes, if we suppose the condition that the owner may 

 not enter it, but is only able to kill what he can from the 

 boundary fence. The eagles and foxes may take some 

 young deer, but to a much greater extent they will help 

 to check the increase of the hares and rabbits which eat up 

 the deer's food. A stag once fairly grown has little to fear 

 from other enemies, but it is powerless to protect itself from 



