ESOCID^. 143 



large stock of food present in the water for theii- sustenance. Jesse tells us how 

 he threw five roach, each about 4 inches long, to a 5 lb. pike, which swallowed one 

 after another of the first four, but the fifth it retained in its mouth for about a 

 quarter of an hour evidently waiting until digestion should make room for its 

 rejoining its companions. 



Means of capture. — This fish is taken for food, as sport or with reference to 

 the condition of the fishery in which it resides. If it is de.sired to diminish its 

 numbers, it stands to reason that such as are captured prior to spawning time, 

 as during Tebruary or March, are more valuable for this purpose than should the 

 ova have been deposited. Netting is most easily employed during the winter 

 months, due to the absence of weeds. Also at such times as they ascend ditches, 

 drains, and other localities for breeding they may be destroyed with comparative 

 ease. They may be speared or wired, or snatched or shot while basking, or 

 destroyed by trimmers, a modification of which is termed a ligger in the eastern 

 counties. 



The angler, however, generally endeavours to take the pike by means of 

 trolling, divisible into such as are fished for with live or dead bait. Either of 

 these baits may be employed on spinning also termed snap tackle, or else on gorge 

 tackle, which latter, as its name implies, is intended to be swallowed prior to the 

 fish being struck. There are likewise various artificial baits employed as the 

 spoon or imitation fish. While large gaudy flies which may be likened to coarse 

 bodied salmon-flies are occasionally found to be killing. 



In Norfolk very great success is sometimes obtained during severe frost on 

 the broads by breaking a hole in the ice and putting down a baited hook (Lubbock). 

 Sharp frosts are sometimes desirable to induce these fishes to feed. Thunder is 

 sometimes auspicious or the time just prior to a flood as the waters commence to 

 swell. The months of November and December are generally considered the 

 best months for the angler. 



Baits.— The young pike, gudgeon, gold-fish, dace, roach, rudd, tench, bleak, 

 perch, or a frog. A large fish prefers a good mouthful, consequently a large bait 

 is esteemed preferable to a small one, roach or rudd of a pound weight is not too 

 large. Small baits are attacked and ruined by the small pike ; however, if hooked 

 they become excellent lures to their larger relatives. 



Breeding. — March and April, sometimes as early as February, especially in 

 Ireland. The ova are small and numerous but very various in number, a 35 lb. 

 fish contained 43,000 : a 32 lb. fish, 596,200 : a 28 lb. fish, 700,000 : a 28 lb. fish, 

 292,320 : a 24 lb. fish, 224,640. They quit the open waters in pairs (being as 

 a rule monogamous) when the breeding season arrives, the male which is the 

 smaller following the female, and they seek small bays, creeks, shallows and con- 

 tiguous ditches where their eggs are deposited among the weeds and leaves of 

 aquatic plants. The pike commences to breed at about three years old, while the 

 younger fish spawn prior to the older ones. It has been remarked that spawning 

 being over the female often eats her husband. 



After breeding they become unfit for food, hardly returning to condition prior 

 to June. 



Monstrosities of the embryos are common, and as pointed out by Lereboullet, 

 (1864) they are either double, the production of a superabundance of the plastic 

 embryonic matter ; or simple in which an individual is partially or wholly defec- 

 tive. This disposition to monstrosity does not appear to be consequent upon any 

 external influences but to be inherent in the ova : although some external causes 

 may occasion an arrest of development more or less complete. 



Life history. — It has been well observed (Lubbock, Fauna of Norfolk, p. 190) 

 tbat this fish from the very ovum appears to manifest the stern and solitary 

 energies of its nature. In summer almost every distinct puddle in fens where 

 turf is cut has its tiny tyrant in an infant pike ; here it enacts despotic 

 sovereignty, and lords it over tadpoles and fry, till fate arrives in the shape of a 

 heron or the first floods of autumn sweep it to the river or broad. Of course the 

 rate of growth may be accelerated or retarded by many local circumstances. 



