44 AKT OP ANGLING. 



young ducks as they are swimming about, and even 

 attack the legs of persons who are bathing. " I 

 have been assured (says "Walton) by my friend 

 Mr. Seagrave, who keeps tame otters, that he has 

 known a Pike, in extreme hunger, fight with one 

 of his otters for a Carp that the otter had caught, 

 and was then bringing out of the water." A 

 Mr. Plott, of Oxford, has recorded the following 

 highly singular anecdote. " At Lord Grower's canal 

 at Trentham, a Pike seized the head of a swan as 

 she was feeding under water, and gorged so much 

 of it as killed them both ; the servants, perceiving 

 the swan with its head under water for a longer 

 time than usual, took boat, and found both swan 

 and Pike dead." 



On Tuesday, October 21st, 1823, a Pike weigh- 

 ing fifty pounds was taken out of the lake at 

 Clumber, the seat of the duke of Newcastle ; its 

 death was supposed to have been occasioned by 

 endeavouring to swallow a Carp, as one was taken 

 out of its throat weighing fourteen pounds. 



August, 1828. As Mr. Scroggs and Mr. Wild, 

 of Kidlington, in Oxfordshire, were trolling for Pike 

 in that neighbourhood, one of these gentlemen had a 

 bite, and shortly afterwards his companion had the 

 same luck. After the two sportsmen had given the 

 usual law, they reeled up their lines, and to their 



