gd ANGLING 



by personal suifering that fish, any more than men, 

 buy wisdom ; our young pikes no sooner begin to feel 

 hunger, and to find they have large mouths, well 

 furnished with teeth, provided on purpose to cater for 

 it, than they proceed at once to make essay upon the 

 bodies of the smallest fish within reach. These are 

 commonly the gaserostei, or sticklebacks, who, on observ- 

 ing the gaping foe advancing against them, prepare for 

 the encounter by bristling up their spines in instinctive 

 readiness to stick in his throat, instead of going smoothly 

 down into his stomach. 



We shall make no apology for inserting a few addi- 

 tional observations from Mr. Gosse's Natural History 

 of Fish, relative to the voracity and modes of feeding of 

 the pike. 



"The voracity of the pike is shown by a circumstance of no 

 infre(iuent occurrence in Sweden. Large perch often swallow 

 the baited hooks of stationary night-lines, and then enormous 

 pike gorge the hooked perch in their turn. In this case, though 

 the pike himself is seldom or never actually hooked, yet on the 

 fisherman's drawing in his line, the perch sets so fast in the 

 greedy throat of the finny tyrant that he has been unable to get 

 rid of it, and both are taken. 



" O'Uorman gives some examples of the same ravenous appetite. 

 One which he killed with a roach for a bait, had in his maw a 

 trout of four pounds weight, evidently just taken ; and another 

 seized a trout of more than six pounds. But these examples 

 yield to what he said he witnessed on Dromore. A large pike 

 having been hooked and nearly exhausted, was suddenly seized 

 in the water and carried to the bottom. Every effort was made 

 for nearly half an hour to bring this enormous fish to shore, but 

 to no purpose ; at length, however, by making a noise with the 

 oars and pulling at the line, the anglers succeeded. On getting 

 up the pike which they had been playing, it was all torn as if by 

 a large dog, but really, doubtless, by another fish of the same 

 species ; and as the pike so ill-treated weighed seventeen pounds, 

 the rapacious fish that had held it so long must have been indeed 

 a monster ! " 



Mr. Lloyd informs us that it is not an uncommon 

 thing in the north of Europe for even the voracious 

 pike to become the prey of a feathered enemy. Eagles 

 frequently pounce on these fish when basking near the 

 surface ; but when the pike has been very large, he has 



