TROLLING WITH DEAD GORGE-BAIT. 18 1 



notices the quantity of food he puts away in a gentlemanlike 

 manner. . . . The one would be a Beau Brummel at table— 

 the other a Dr. Samuel Johnson.' Elsewhere he observes, ' It 

 requires a large fish to be pouched to render torpid his (the 

 pike's^ muscular action, or arrest the action of his most strongly 

 and rapidly dissolving gastric juices.' 



From instances on record it would appear, however, that 

 the taking by the pike of a fish large enough to produce tor- 

 pidity is by no means so rare as the doctor would seem to sup- 

 pose : 'On Tuesday, Oct 21, 1823,' says Bowlker, 'a pike 

 weighing 50 lbs. was taken out of a lake belonging to the Duke 

 of Newcastle ; its death was supposed to have been occasioned 

 by its endeavouring to swallow a carp, as one was taken out of 

 its throat weighing 14 lbs.! ' It is mentioned by Mr. Wright, 

 in his 'Fishes and Fishing,' that in 1796 a soiiiewhat similar 

 circumstance occurred in the Serpentine, where a 30-lb. pike 

 was captured alive, but in an exhausted condition, nearly 

 opposite the receiving-house, and having stuck fast in his 

 throat a carp of the weight of nearly 7 lbs. 



O'Gorman, in his ' Practice of Angling,' relates several 

 curious anecdotes of the ravenous appetite of the pike. One 

 which he caught had in his maw a trout of 4 lbs., whilst another 

 seized and attempted to swallow a 6-lb. fish of the same species, 

 as it was about to be landed. More remarkable still, however, 

 is the following, which he witnessed on Dromore : — A large 

 pike which had been hooked and was nearly exhausted, was sud- 

 denly seized and carried to the bottom. Every effort was made 

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

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

 oars and pulling hard at the line, the anglers succeeded in dis- 

 engaging the fish first hooked, but on getting it to the surface 

 it was ' torn as if by a large dog,' though really doubtless by 

 another pike ; and as the weight of the fish thus illtreated was 

 17 lbs., the size of its retainer may be imagined. 



Mr. Frederick Lupton, of the Cloister, Westminster, sends 

 me the following anecdote : — 



