218 THE ANGLER-NATURALIST. 



by the effect of introducing the latter into trouting and 

 salmon waters, where the new-comer speedily dispossesses 

 the rightful tenants. Witness, for instance, the ravages 

 committed in the Canterbury River, in the Wandle *, in 

 the Colne near Draycot and Cowley -f, in the Teviot J, and 

 in Lochs Katrine, Lomond, Awe, and Jurit § in Scot- 

 land ; and the same thing is known to have taken place 

 in many of the best Irish waters, where the Pike is still 

 continuing to spread and multiply, displacing by degrees 

 the Trout and other indigenous races. Salter says, "1 

 have known instances of Pike entirely destroying every 

 fish in a pond, and then making a prey of each other 

 till there has been but one left." If, therefore, as it has 

 been asserted, the fish was really imported into this 

 country, it is evident that it has borne the expatriation 

 without much detriment to its constitutional vigour or 

 productiveness. 



Indeed, how Pike spread is a problem which it has 

 perplexed naturalists to explain. A stream, or pond, or 

 loch, reserved perhaps for centuries to the docile phleg- 

 matic Carp, or ' star-stoled Trout,' suddenly begins to show 

 symptoms of a falling off; the next year matters are 

 worse; the water is dragged, and the first fish to come 

 up in the net is probably a Pike. How the Pike came 

 there, or who put it there, remains unexplained ; but the 



* Practical Angler, p. 242. t WrigM's Fishes and Fishing. 



:|: Stoddart's Angler's Companion. 

 § Stoddart's Scottish Angler, p. 57. 



