SOFT-FINNED FISH. 



303 



43. The Esox or Pike. 1 The body round; 

 the head with a beak ; the under jaw pierced 

 longitudinally with small holes ; the r)n cov- 

 ering the gills with from seven to twelve rays. 



44. The Argentina or Argentine. The body 

 a little round and slender ; the head with a 

 beak, broader than the body ; the fin covering 

 the gills with eight rays ; a spurious back-fin. 



The most usual mode of fishing for this great lake 

 trout is from a boat, which is rowed gently through the 

 water; the bait, as before mentioned, a small trout, 

 guarded by six or eight large hooks: the rod and line of 

 great strength; for this fish is considered to be even 

 stronger than a salmon of the same size, but not so ac- 

 tive. Young fish from one to two pounds' weight rise 

 freely to the usual trout flies. 



The Salmon-trout, so called from its resemblance 

 to the two fish whose name it bears, attains the size 

 of a small salmon; is spotted in the same manner as the 

 trout ; and, like it, spawns in winter. Like the salmon 

 it sometimes inhabits the sea, and sometimes the rivers; 

 it likewise ascends into the latter to deposit its spawn. 

 The salmon-trouts, however, do not quit the sea so early 

 as the salmon, being seldom seen in the rivers before 

 the month of May. They spawn in the same manner 

 as salmon, in November or December; but as the rivers 

 are then frozen, they do not retire to the sea till after 

 the thaw. Like all other fish of the same genus, they 

 live upon aquatic insects, worms, and small fish, and are 

 fond of rapid streams, with a bottom of sand and gravel. 

 Their flesh is red, and well-tasked, particularly before 

 the spawning season. Its quality depends, in a great 

 measure, on the greater or less degree of purity of the 

 streams in which the fish are taken ; their colour and 

 spots vary extremely from the same cause. They die 

 soon after they are taken out of the water. Young salmon 

 trout are known by the name of whitlings ; and many 

 have supposed them to be young salmon, which opinion 

 has been proved to be ill-founded. 



Salmon-trouts attain a considerable size, weighing 

 sometimes eight or ten pounds. Dr Bloch describes 

 one that was twenty inches in length, an inch and a half 

 thick, and which weighed five pounds and three quarters. 

 This gentleman discovered, that this fish, like several 

 kinds of sea-fish, possesses the quality of emitting light 

 in a dark place ; and that the palate, tongue, gills, and 

 eyes, were endowed with that property in an eminent 

 degree. When touched with the finger, those parts cast 

 a considerable light ; and when any other part was rub- 

 bed with the same finger, that quality was likewise 

 communicated to it. The luminous matter, the doctor 

 imagines, is contained in the slimy substance which 

 covers those parts ; for the flesh does not afford the 

 smallest appearance of light. He kept fish eight days, 

 and this luminous property diminished in proportion as 

 the viscous matter was dried up. 



The Grayling is a scarce fish in England, and is not 

 to be found in Scotland or Ireland. They frequent rivers 

 of peculiar temperature or current. 



1 The Pike, from its fierce disposition and great vor- 

 acity, has been called, not unaptly, the fresh-water 

 shark ; it is found in almost all of the I'resh waters of 

 Europe, and in those of the north of Asia and of Amer- 

 ica, being everywhere- noted for the great rapidity of its 

 growth. 



The head of the pike is large, flattened in front, and 

 compressed on the sides. The opening of the mouth is 

 extremely deep, and extends as far back as the eyes; the 

 lower jaw is somewhat longer than the upper ; the front 

 teeth on this jaw are strong but small, and every other 



one is moveable. The upper jaw is furnished with teeth 

 in front only, but the palate also possesses three rows of 

 teeth, the two outer rows of which are very strong and 

 turned backwards. As many as seven hundred tee'.li 

 have been counted in the jaws of a pike, without in- 

 cluding those which are found in the throat, and near 

 the internal opening to the gills. The mouth of this 

 tyrant is, indeed, every way formidable, for even the 

 tongue itself is covered with teeth. 



This fish, in the course of the first year's growth, at. 

 tains the length of eight or ten inches, in the second, 

 twelve or fourteen, and in the 'third-, eighteen or twenty. 

 It has been found as much as eight feet in length, and 

 in the great fresh-water lakes of the north of Europe, 

 and the rivers of Northern Asia, as for instance the 

 Volga, specimens four or five feet in length are far from 

 rare. 



Among the extraordinary tales recorded of this fish, 

 the following is one of the most remarkable, and, at the 

 same time, among the best authenticated. In 1 497 a 

 pike was taken at Kayserslautern, in the palatinate of the 

 Rhine, which weighed three hundred and fifty pounds ; 

 a painting was made of this wonderful fish, which is pre- 

 served in the castle of Lautern, and the skeleton was 

 preserved at Manheim. The emperor Barbarossa had 

 placed this fish in the lake in the year 1230, with a 

 ring of gilded copper attached to it, so constructed as to 

 be capable of expanding with the growth of the fish. So 

 that when taken, a period of two hundred and sixty-seven 

 years had elapsed from the period when it had been re- 

 consigned to the lake encumbered with this singular 

 memento. 



As already observed, the pike is common in all the 

 rivers, lakes, and ditches, of the north of Europe, but it 

 is much less seldom met with towards the south. It is 

 said to have been introduced into England in the reign 

 of Henry VIII. when it was so rare that a pike sold 

 at double the price of a house lamb in February, and 

 a pickerel ( small pike,) for more than a fat capon. 



The instances of the voracity of this fish are numer- 

 ous ; for, not content with small fish and frogs, it will 

 devour rats, young ducks, and occasionally much more 

 formidable prey. In the History of Staffordshire it is 

 stated that, " at Lord Gower's estate at Trentham, a 

 pike seized the head of a swan, as she was feeding under 

 water, and gorged so much of it as killed them both. 

 The servants, perceiving the swan remain in the same 

 position for a considerable time, went in a boat, and 

 found both swan and pike dead. 



Gesner says, that a famished pike, in the Rhone, fixed 

 on the lips of a mule that was drinking, and was drawn 

 out by the beast before it could disengage itself. 



In December, 1765, a pike was caught in the river 

 Ouse, weighing upwards of twenty-eight pounds, and 

 was bought by a gentleman in the neighbourhood for a 

 guinea. When opened, the cook found a watch with 

 two seals attached to it by a black riband, in the body 

 of the fish. These, it was afterwards discovered, had 

 belonged to a gentleman's servant, who had been drowned 

 about six weeks before. 



Pikes are necessarily great destroyers of fish in ponds, 

 but there are two descriptions of fishes, namely, the 

 perch and the stickleback, which they are unwilling to 

 attack ; the sharp spines of their back-fins sticking in 

 the throat of the pike, more particularly that of the 

 stickleback. 



An instance lately occurred at Edmonton of a pike 

 capturing a sparrow, that was perched on the edge of a 

 water-lily in a pond. The fish surprised the uususpect- 



