THE PIKE. 133 



The voracity of this fish is almost unexampled, 

 even in a class remarkable for their omnivorous 

 propensities. Goslings, young ducks, and coots, 

 water-rats, kittens, and the young of its own species, 

 besides every kind of fresh water fish, have been 

 found in the stomach of the pike. It is said to 

 contend with the otter for its prey, and has been 

 known to pull a mule into the water by the nose, 

 and a washerwoman by the foot. 



There seems, indeed, to be no bounds to its glut- 

 tony, as it devours almost indiscriminately what- 

 ever edible substance it meets with, and swallows 

 every animal it can subdue. " It is," says Lacepede, 

 " the shark of the fresh waters, and reigns there a 

 devastating tyrant, as does its prototype in the 

 midst of the ocean ; insatiable in its appetites, it 

 ravages with fearful rapidity the streams, the lakes, 

 the fish ponds, wherever it inhabits. Blindly 

 ferocious, it does not spare its species, and devours 

 even its own young ; gluttonous without choice, 

 it tears and swallows with a sort of fury the re- 

 mains even of putrid carcases. This blood-thirsty 

 creature is also one of those to which nature has 

 accorded the longest duration of years ; for ages it 

 terrifies, agitates, pursues, murders, and devours 

 the feebler inhabitants of the waters ; and as if, in 

 spite of its insatiable cruelty it was meant it should 



tioned in an Act of the sixth year of the reign of Richard the Second, 

 1382, which relates to the forstalling of fish." " Pike were so rare 

 in the reign of Henry the Eighth, that a large one sold for double the 

 price of a house-lamb in February, and a picherel, or small pike, for 

 more than a fat capon." BRITISH FISHES, vol. i. p. 384. 



