146 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [PART I. 



less Pikes will bite when they are not hungry, but, as some 

 think, even for very anger, when a tempting bait comes near 

 to them. 



And it is observed that the Pike will eat venomous things, 

 as some kind of frogs are, and yet live without being harmed 

 by them ; for, as some say, he has in him a natural balsam, or 

 antidote against all poison : and he has a strange heat, that, 

 though it appear to us to be cold, can yet digest, or put over, 

 any fish-flesh, by degrees, without being sick. And others ob- 

 serve, that he never eats the venomous frog till he have first 

 killed her, and then as ducks are observed to do to frogs in 

 spawning-time, at which time some frogs are observed to be 

 venomous so thoroughly washed her, by tumbling her up and 

 down in the water, that he may devour her without danger. 

 And Gesner affirms that a Polonian gentleman did faithfully 

 assure him he had seen two young geese at one time in the 

 belly of a Pike. And doubtless a Pike, in his height of hunger, 

 will bite at and devour a dog that swims in a pond ; and there 

 have been examples of it, or the like ; for, as I told you, " The 

 belly has no ears when hunger comes upon it." 



The Pike is also observed to be a solitary, melancholy, and 

 a bold fish : melancholy, because he always swims or rests him- 

 self alone, and never swims in shoals or with company, as 

 Roach and Qace, and most other fish do : and bold, because 

 he fears not a shadow, or to see or be seen of anybody, as the 

 Trout and Chub and all other fish do. 



And it is observed by Gesner, that the jaw-bones and hearts 

 and galls of Pikes are very medicinable for several diseases ; or 

 to stop blood, to abate fevers, to cure agues, to oppose or ex- 

 pel the infection of the plague, and to be many ways medicin- 

 able and useful for the good of mankind : but he observes, 

 that the biting of a Pike is venomous and hard to be cured. 



And it is observed, that the Pike is a fish that breeds but once 

 a year, and that other fish, as namely Loaches, do breed pftener, 



