16 DAYS AMONG THE PIKE AND PERCH 



Now what are we to say about this case ? Surely one 

 ten-pound pike did not make a deliberate attempt to 

 swallow another ten-pounder ? The mind boggles at this, 

 unless one of those pike was suffering from a very serious 

 deformity of vision. Or were they fighting, and one made 

 a tremendous charge at the open mouth of the other with 

 such disastrous results ? 



Some anglers are afraid of jack ; they look upon them as 

 things to be avoided, and won't put their hands anywhere 

 near them if they can help it. But with ordinary care there 

 is no danger. I have been many times in close quarters 

 with these fish, and even if I crawled ever so gingerly to- 

 wards them and peered cautiously through the flags and 

 rushes at them, as soon as ever my eyes met the wicked- 

 looking ones of the fish, like a flash of light he would vanish, 

 and leave scarcely a ripple behind. 



A friend of mine has a small pond in his garden, and we 

 put a baby jack some ten inches long in it one day. This 

 jack was fed on worms, and in a couple of years it had 

 grown some three inches only in length. A lobworm held 

 at full length in my friend's fingers and dangled over the 

 water would be followed all round the pond by that fish. 

 It was very interesting to watch ; and I often wondered if 

 pike have any reasoning faculties ; it looked very much 

 like it in that case, although one distinguished writer says 

 " they have neither sense nor feeling." 



The Rev. Mr. Manley, in writing of this fish and its 

 habits, uses much the same words ; he says " that in 

 reality nothing comes amiss to him. He has no more taste, 

 in the true sense of the word, than he has feeling. All's 

 fish, at least food, that comes into his net. Certainly 

 when left to his natural devices he is the sort of gentleman 

 who would eat the toast on which asparagus is placed to 

 drain, the tinfoil in which Rochefort cheese is enwrapped, 

 the crust of a game pie, or the envelopment of an Oxford 

 brawn." 



Pike-fishing engaged the attention of our forefathers a 



