ESOX LUCITTS. 363 



Frank Buckland enjoyed special opportunities for seeing large specimens, 

 and among the finest which came under his notice were several forty-six inches 

 long and thirty-five to thirty-six pounds in weight. Though still larger fishes 

 are reputed to swim, Buckland warns us that, " to put it in plain language, 

 more lies have been told about the Pike than about any other fish in the world." 



In Austria it is frequently from twenty to thirty pounds in weight, and 

 Heckel and Kner say that it grows in the Atter See to a weight of forty to 

 forty-eight pounds. Yarrell tells us of a Pike from Loch Lomond which 

 weighed seventy-nine pounds, and Mr. Thompson in his " Natural History 

 of Ireland" mentions one taken in County Clare which weighed seventy- 

 eight pounds, but I am unable to find personal testimony to larger fishes 

 than those seen by Buckland. In Sweden the reputation of a Pike four feet 

 long and eighty pounds in weight reached Mr. Lloyd, but the monster 

 appeared a long time ago, and though dragged five times up to the gunwale 

 of the punt, was never captured. 



There is reason to suppose that the large fishes of forty-six inches were not 

 more than fifteen years old, and the legends of fishes with the rings bearing 

 ancient dates have not that quality of veracity which is required by science ; for 

 although the skeleton of the great fish said to be seventeen feet long, and 

 reputed to be 267 years old, was preserved in the Cathedral of Mannheim, its 

 bones furnished the unexpected gloss on the old story that it had been manu- 

 factured out of smaller fishes. 



The Pike grows rapidly. Sometimes it weighs only half a pound in the 

 first year, and two pounds in the second year, but a two-year-old fish may with 

 exceptional feeding weigh six or seven pounds. It is the greediest of predaceous 

 fishes, and the boldest robber in the waters. It is by no means exclusively a 

 feeder on fish, but is as omnivorous as a^pig. 



Much of the food of a Pike may consist of frogs, leeches, weeds, Trout, 

 Carp, or other fishes ; but young wild-ducks, water-hens, coots, and water- 

 rats do not come amiss, and when hungry it will swallow anything that comes 

 within reach of its jaws. Mr. Jesse states that a Pike of five pounds consumes 

 thirty Gudgeon a week, which is an average of four to five a day. It can, 

 however, eat more, since when five Roach were thrown to this Pike in suc- 

 cession, four of them, each four inches long, were swallowed at once, while the 

 fifth disappeared in about a quarter of an hour. Tales are told of Pike seizing 

 the limbs of bathers, and attempting to capture the snouts of mules and donkeys 

 which had gone down to the water to drink. But there seems to be no doubt 

 about the story told by Mr. Jesse, of a man who, endeavouring to capture a 

 large Pike, which had got into a shallow creek, received severe wounds on the 

 arms in the combat. 



