374 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



summer months are chiefly young fish. The big fish are 

 not easy to see in the water either during June or July ; 

 for when the tench begin to spawn, they work down in two 

 feet of water, and entirely cover themselves over with weed, 

 occasionally leaving a bit of tail showing a gleaming patch 

 that the darter soon espies and strikes at ; the darter choosing 

 a still close day not too bright, and when the water is tea- 

 coloured. The big fish that the dart grips, seem to lie lazily 

 in their weedy lairs, dozing the summer away, and getting 

 covered with parasites or " suckers," as the Broadsmen call 

 them, and mayhap developing those tape-worms they have. 



When the autumn gales stir the broads, they grow live- 

 lier, and go to deep water, where it is warmer and stiller. 

 There they, too, begin to feed, and never return to shallow 

 water, unless it be to follow their prey ; for when they are 

 hunting, with their fins erect and eyes glaring, they will work 

 through a reed-bed just like a tiger after its prey, taking 

 their fish crosswise, no matter its size, turning it afterwards, 

 and swallowing it head first. They often go from their haunts 

 to feeding-grounds at night, and return at daybreak. An 

 old fisherman assured me he once saw a pike take a great 

 old bream that was coming end on, and it choked him, so 

 that both died. In On English Lagoons I recorded a 

 similar case. 



Pike will take any fish when hard pressed tench, perch, 

 eels, bream, roach, rudd, or smelts, as well as voles, and 

 in the dikes young birds, for they seldom take fledglings 

 unless in confined waters where fish is scarce. On the 

 open waters, when there is plenty of bait, they do not touch 

 them, though sometimes they take a duckling. 



The pike is a good jumper, like the salmon ; and at 

 the breeding season, if you leave him in a trunk (open), 

 he will jump out. They will jump out of a pond, too 

 ligger and all at times especially if the water be warm. 

 He is very strong, and woe to the trunk that is placed 

 under water with a big pike in it. Pike will jump out of 



