134 ANGLING. 



receive every advantage, it has not only been gifted 

 with great strength, gigantic size, and formidable 

 weapons, but has also been adorned with elegance 

 of form, symmetry of proportions, and richness and 

 variety of colour."* We cannot altogether agree 

 with this eloquent and ingenious French writer, 

 in his admiration of the general aspect of the pike. 

 Like almost all fishes, it bears about it some beauti- 

 ful tinting when fresh, but we think its long lank 

 jaws, and sunken eyes, give it rather a malign or 

 diabolical expression, such as we would by no means 

 approve of in any near relation of our own. 



A singular instance of its voracity is related by 

 Johnson, who asserts that he saw one killed which 

 contained in its interior another pike of large size, 

 and the latter, on being opened, was found to have 

 swallowed a water rat ! We ourself once killed a 

 small pike about seven pounds in weight, and in 

 his interior was found a promising young pike above 

 a pound weight (probably his own eldest son), 

 which he had swallowed, we can scarcely think in- 

 advertently, as the tail continued sticking out of 

 his mouth like a quid of tobacco. The beauty of 

 the thing was, that the heir-apparent had previously 

 swallowed a perch, and this would have been all well 

 enough in its way, had not the perch had a hook 

 in its mouth, and another curving from its tail, 

 the result of which unforeseen fact was an addi- 

 tional piece of gluttony on our own part, both 

 parent and child being stewed in milk that same 



* Quoted in Griffith's Animal Kingdom, vol. x. p. 461. 



