134 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



But if these relations be disbelieved, it is too evident to be 

 doubted, that a pike will devour a fish of his own kind that 

 shall be bigger than his belly or throat will receive, and 

 swallow a part of him, and let the other part remain in his 

 mouth till the swallowed part be digested, and then swallow 

 that other part, that was in his mouth, and so put it over by 

 degrees ; which is not unlike the ox, and some other beasts, 

 taking their meat, not out of their mouth immediately into 

 their belly, but first into some place betwixt, and then chew 

 it, or digest it by degrees after, which is called chewing the 

 cud. And, doubtless, 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 appears to us to be cold, can yet digest or put over 

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

 observe 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, 



swimming, escaped the dreadful jaws of this voracious animal." In Dr. Plot's 

 History of Staffordshire, 246, are sundry relations of pike of great magnitude, 

 one in particular caught in the Thame, an ell and two inches long. The fol- 

 lowing story, containing further evidence of the voracity of this fish, with the 

 addition of a pleasant circumstance, I met with in Fuller's Worthies, Lincoln- 

 shire, page 144. "A cub fox, drinking out of the river Arnus, in Italy, had 

 his head seized on by a mighty pike, so that neither could free themselves, but 

 were ingrappled together. In this contest a young man runs into the water, 

 takes them out both alive, and carrieth them to the Duke of Florence, whose 

 palace was hard by. The porter would not admit him without promising 

 of sharing his full half in what the duke should give him ; to wlu'ch he (hope- 

 less otherwise of entrance) condescended ; the duke, highly affected with the 

 rarity, was about giving him a good reward, which the other refused, desiring 

 his highness would appoint one of his guard to give him a hundred lashes, that 

 so his porter might have fifty, according to his composition. And here 

 my intelligence leaveth me, how much farther the jest was followed." H. 



