1 58 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 



then a little Eel, when it is large then an Eel, and when very 



large a Conger. 

 A Smelt or Sparling. First a Sprat, then a small Sparling, then 



a Sparling. 



A Minnow. First a Shad-bied, then a Sprat, then a Minnow. 

 A Barbel. First a Barbett, then a Barbalett, then a Barb or a 



Barbell. 



A Loach. First a Lochett, a young Loche, then a Loache. 

 A Lamprey. First a Lampron Grigg, then a Lampret, then a 



Lamprell, then a Lamprey. 



The fattening of pike in stew ponds has led me on insensibly, 

 step by step, until I perceive how much I have meandered away 

 from the direct path. I find, however, I have not quite done 

 with the original text, so I must 'try back,' or, what would be 

 more appropriate in a fishing essay, ' make a cast.' 



Returning then to the frog-eating propensities of the pike, 

 for he is the very king stork of fable, it is a curious thing that 

 although he will even seize the most unsavoury of morsels, the 

 toad, the inherent nauseousness of the animal saves it, I suppose, 

 from being actually swallowed its skin, like that of the lizard, 

 containing a white acid secretion which exudes from small 

 glands dispersed all over its body as well as from the two little 

 knobs, in shape like split beans, behind the head, from which, 

 upon pressure, the acid also escapes. 



To test this I used sometimes when feeding pike with frogs 

 to throw them a toad, as it were accidentally, instead. It has 

 usually been immediately snapped up and as immediately spat 

 up again, the same toad having thus passed a more than 

 Jonah-like ordeal through the jaws of almost every fish in the 

 pond, and escaped with but little injury after all. 



Although, however, the pike appears to exercise a discrimina- 

 ting taste in certain cases, there are very few things which, in 

 a state of hunger he will not swallow or, at least, attack. Both 

 land and water rats are frequent victims. Sometimes they are 

 swallowed but more often ejected as in the case of the *oad, 

 whether, as Captain Williamson suggests, owing to 'the resist- 

 ance the rat mtikes, which I have witnessed to be very fierce 



