THE PIKE. 63 



come to the surface. We have always noticed that 

 the biggest pike are caught during close sultry weather, 

 with a ground bait, and at those times when trout re- 

 fuse food altogether ; also at night, with set lines, in 

 the summer months, when they leave the weeds and 

 bulrushes in quest of food. 



Although the pike is often nice and suspicious, in 

 places where trout abound, still, when provoked, he 

 becomes very bold and unwary, treating your presence 

 as no constraint upon his temper and appetite. He 

 will follow the bait to your very feet, and, should it 

 escape him, retire a yard or two, waiting eagerly for its 

 reappearance. When angry, he erects his fins in a 

 remarkable manner, as the lion doth his mane, or the 

 porcupine his quills ; moreover, the pike appears care- 

 less of pain, if, indeed, fishes in general feel it to any 

 great degree. We have actually landed one of these 

 fish, cooped him alive in our creel, and when by some 

 negligence of ours he made his escape into the water, 

 have succeeded a second time in securing him. On an- 

 other occasion, we remember having part of our tackle, 

 consisting of a large double gorge-hook, dressed upon 

 brase wire, carried off by a pike : and yet upon renew- 

 ing it, the aggressor returned to the charge, and was 

 taken. The former hook we discovered, gorged by him 

 in such a manner as must, we thought, not only have 

 suffocated any other animal, but done so by the me- 

 dium of the most exquisite internal agony. 



Judging from these facts, and others we shall pre- 

 sently relate, it seems to us, that, according to the ar- 

 rangements of Nature, fishes are possessed of no very 

 acute sense of pain, and are generally defective in that 

 structure of emotions, upon which suffering and plea- 

 sure are separately dependent. Those who hold 

 angling to be a cruel sport, are, we maintain, without 



