THE PIKE FAMILY. 219 



cause of the depletion of the water is no longer a mystery. 

 Some authors have accounted for these singular immigra- 

 tions hy supposing that the Pike, like the Eel *, actually 

 travels overland in wet weather from one pond to another t ; 

 and several curious circumstanceSj which have recently 

 come to my knowledge, would appear to lend some colour 

 to the supposition. 



A gentleman who has had considerable experience in 

 the management of fish was witness to one of these 

 apparent migrations. " My brother and myself," he writes 

 to me, " were starting on a fishing-expedition at about 

 3 o'clock in the morning, when, happening to pass my breed- 

 ing-ponds — distant some half a dozen yards from the main 

 stream — we found a Pike jumping and working about in 

 the wet grass, and evidently making for the river, towards 

 which it had already proceeded two-thirds of the way when 

 our arrival cut short its journey. The dewy state of the 

 grass^ at the time standing for hay, would have enabled 

 me to detect any appearance of footsteps had such been 

 near the ponds, and negatived the idea of the stews having 

 been visited by poachers, either biped or quadruped. This 

 circumstance, I think, may possibly explain what has often 

 puzzled me — namely, how it is that so many large Pike 

 are put into the ponds, and that so few are ever forth- 

 coming when required." 



» See instances alluded to in the Chapter on Eels. 



t See, amongst other works, The Complete Angler's Vade-Mecum, 



p. 137. 



l3 



