28 Wild Life in Wales 



the insidious foes that are for ever robbing it of the means 

 of growing fat. There is, however, no occasion to labour 

 the picture. In the water, pike and perch may be sub- 

 stituted for eagles and foxes, and hares and rabbits we may 

 imagine to be represented by roach or other coarse fish, but 

 the deer make but a poor prototype for the predatory 

 salmonidae. 



A big trout is almost as great a tyrant as a pike, and is 

 well able to hold his own under all circumstances. He 

 naturally frequents the haunts of young salmonidae more 

 than a pike does, and in the course of a year probably 

 accounts for the disappearance of more of his own species 

 than fall to the lot of any half-dozen pike that is, of course, 

 in places where coarse fish occur. Pike are always en- 

 croaching upon the domain of the latter, and undoubtedly 

 consume far more of them than of the more wary and less 

 easily captured salmonidae. They are largely instrumental 

 in keeping down the increase of perch, and of all fish 

 (except eels) the latter are probably the greatest enemy of 

 small fry of all kinds. Bala Lake swarms with minnows, 

 and on a quiet summer evening I have often stood and 

 watched small perch, of scarcely a quarter of a pound in 

 weight, chasing minnows with such determination that they 

 were themselves frequently stranded in shoal water, from 

 which I occasionally transferred them by hand to my fishing 

 creel. The minnows, in their endeavours to escape, were 

 often left high and dry upon the gravel, whence they 

 gradually kicked their way back to the water again, some- 

 times to be at once pounced upon by the perch, who, half 

 out of the water himself, one could almost fancy was gloat- 

 ing over the struggles of his victim upon dry land, and 

 deliberately awaiting its return. In several instances the 

 same perch was seen to capture three or four minnows in 

 rapid succession. 



One very serious drawback to having pike in a lake is 

 the depreciations they commit upon young wildfowl. 

 Where they are numerous, ducks and other birds will 

 hardly remain to nest if they can avoid it, or if less 

 dangerous places are to be found in the neighbourhood. 



