THE PIKE. 107 



The pike weighed 91bs., and, on opening it, in 

 its stomach were found three small fish, a water- 

 rat, and a young moor-hen." 



The voracity of the pike is connected with 

 its rapidity of growth, wl^ich necessitates an 

 abundant supply of nutriment, and involves at 

 the same time extreme celerity of digestion. 

 A young pike is recorded to reach to the length 

 of about eight inches during the first year, to 

 that of twelve or fourteen during the second 

 year, and of eighteen or twenty inches during 

 the third ; after this its increase for several suc- 

 cessive years, where stores of food are abundant, 

 is at the rate of three or four pounds per year. 

 Eight pike, of about five poiuids each, have been 

 ascertained to devour eight hundred gudgeons 

 in three weeks. Some idea from this may be 

 formed of the havoc this fish must make in the 

 meres, lakes, or rivers, in which it is plentiful, 

 and of the necessity of encoiuraging the breeds 

 of inferior fishes, as the bream and others, for 

 its due maintenance. The pike not only lives 

 to an extreme age, but attains to extraordinary 

 dimensions. Pennant speaks of one ninety 

 years of age, and Gesner notices a pike taken 

 at Hailbrun, in Suabia, in 1497, with a brazen 

 ring attached to it, on which was inscribed in 

 Greek characters, "I am the fish which was 



