THE PIKE 89 



therefore, the fish, may be considered the more respect- 

 able gourmand of the two. When the appetite of the 

 pike is on, he is furious; when it is appeased, he is 

 scarcely to be tempted. Practised trollers are well 

 aware of this, and thoroughly understand the difference 

 between the " runs," when he is hungry and in earnest, 

 and when he is neither one nor the other. When not 

 stimulated by hunger, he is anything but voracious, and 

 will mouth a bait and play with it for a quarter of an 

 hour, in sheer sport, without the slightest intention of 

 swallowing it. In this condition he will often allow 

 himself to be hauled about, and quietly pulled up to 

 the surface of the water, and then, with a careless flap 

 of his tail, he coolly drops the bait from his jaws, and 

 lazily rolls down again into deep water. 



This daintiness of food has been often noticed by 

 very ancient writers. Several of the scholastic divines, 

 in their general summaries of matters of natural history, 

 mention the fact. They sometimes go very minutely 

 into his peculiarities of taste. They maintain, there 

 are some particular articles he is passionately fond 

 of ; among these are the following : — A swan's head 

 and shoulders, a mule's lip, a Polish damsel's foot, a 

 gentleman's hand, tender kittens before their eyes are 

 opened, and the fleshy parts of a calf's head. There 

 are likewise things to which he evinces a great dislike. 

 In the midst of a banquet of frogs, throw him a toad, 

 and he turns from it loathing ; put a slimy tench near 

 his muzzle, and he will recoil from the nauseous 

 creature; and if compelled by strong necessity, as the 

 scarcity of all other more acceptable food, to dine on 

 a perch, he holds it shudderingly under water, at the 

 greatest possible distance transversely in his jaws, 

 whilst any life remains, and having next carefully put 

 down the offensive spines on the back, proceeds to 

 pouch it with address, but leisurely, and not without 

 manifest reluctance. The sticklebacks are held in yet 

 greater abomination than perch by old pikes, and not 

 without good reason, seeing the havoc they commit 

 amongst the young and unwary pickerels. It is only 



