300 PBOSE HALIETTTICS. 



his career of violence seems prolonged indefinitely j with 

 strength and activity undiminished, and a voracity whoUy 

 unimpaired, ' for centuries he agitates, pursues, and de- 

 stroys every living creature he meets ;' and time, which 

 loosens most things, seems only to tighten his teeth. 

 The proceedings of this stealthy and greedy marauder 

 are described with the fidelity of an eye-witness by the 

 author of ' British Fish and Fisheries :' ' Shrouded from 

 observation in his solitary retreat, he follows with his eye 

 the motions of the shoals of fish that wander heedlessly 

 along ; he marks the water-rat swimming to his burrow, 

 the ducklings paddling among the water-weeds, the dab- 

 chick and the moor-hen leisurely swimming on the sur- 

 face ; he selects his victim, and, like the tiger springing 

 from the jungle, he rushes forth, seldom indeed missing 

 his aim : there is a sudden rush, circle after circle forms 

 on the surface of the water, and all is still again in an 

 instant.' Though few things come amiss to our ' fresh- 

 water shark,' he too, like omnivorous man, has his pre- 

 ferences and dislikes ; in the midst of a banquet of frogs, 

 throw him a toad, and he turns from it loathing ; put a 

 slimy tench near his muzzle, and he will recoil from the 

 nauseous creature ; and if compelled by strong necessity 

 to dine on a "perch, he holds it whilst alive at jaw's length 

 transversely imder water ; nor even when dead, and after 

 he has very carefully put down the offensive spines, does 

 he swallow it without manifest signs of reluctance and 

 distrust. By old pikes, sticklebacks are held in yet 

 greater abomination than perch, and not without good 

 reason, seeing the havoc they commit amongst the young 

 and unwary pickerels. It is only by personal suffering 

 that fish any more than men ever buy wisdom ; growing 

 pikes no sooner begin to feel the cravings of hunger, and 

 to find they have large mouths, well furnished vrith teeth 

 on purpose to cater for it, than they proceed to make 

 preliminary essay upon the smallest fish within reach ; 



