CHAP. VI.IL] THE FOURTH DAY. 189 



All pikes that live long, prove chargeable to their keepers, 

 because their life is maintained by the death of so many 

 other fish, even those of their own kind, which has made 

 him, by some writers, to be called the tyrant of the rivers, 

 or the fresh-water wolf, by reason of his bold, greedy, 

 devouring disposition, which is so keen, that, as Gresner 

 relates, a man going to a pond, where it seems a pike had 

 devoured all the fish, to water his mule, had a pike bit his 

 mule by the lips, to which the pike hung so fast, that the 

 mule drew him out of the water, and by that accident the 

 owner of the mule angled out the pike. And the same 

 Gresner observes, that a maid in Poland had a pike bit her 

 by the foot as she was washing close in a pond. And I have 

 heard the like of a woman in Killing worth pond, not far 

 from Coventry. 1 But I have been assured by my friend 

 Mr. Seagrave, of whom I spake to you formerly, that keeps 

 tame otters, that he hath 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. I have told you who relate these things; and 

 tell you they are persons of credit, and shall conclude 

 this observation, by telling you, what a wise man has 

 observed, " It is a hard thing to persuade the belly, because 

 it has no ears." 2 



1 A girl was washing her hand in a small pond in Staffordshire, 

 when a pike seized it and lacerated both her hand and arm very severely. 

 ED. 



* Bowlker, in his "Art of Angling," gives the following instance of the 

 exceeding voracity of this fish : "My father caught a pike in Barn-Meer 

 (a large standing-water in Cheshire), was an ell long, and weighed thirty- 

 five pounds, which he brought to the Lord Cholmondeley : his lordship 

 ordered it to be turned into a canal in the garden, wherein were abundance 

 of several sorts of fish. About twelve months after, his lordship drawed 

 the canal, and found that this overgrown pike had devoured all the fish, 

 except one large carp that Aveighed between nine and ten pounds, and that 

 was bitten in several places. The pike was then put into the canal again, 

 together with abundance of fish with him to feed upon, all which he 

 devoured in less than a year's time ; and was observed by the gardener and 

 workmen there to take the ducks, and other water-fowl, under water. 

 Whereupon they shot magpies and crows, and threw them into the canal, 

 which the pike took before their eyes : of this they acquainted their lord ; 

 who, thereupon, ordered the slaughterman to throw in calves' -bellies, 

 chickens' -guts, and siich like garbage, to him, to prey upon. Being soon 

 after neglected, he died, as supposed, from want of food." The following 



