194 NOTES ON FISH AND FISHING. 



what Dr. Badham calls an attack of " sticklebackitis," as 

 he advances to pikehood. He is said also to abjure perch, 

 knowing well the dangerous quality of their dorsal spinous 

 fin. I doubt it ; for at Slapton Lea, in Devonshire, I have 

 killed scores of jack with a perch both spinning and live 

 baiting, because no other bait than the perch from the 

 water canbe got there; though I admit I cut off the threaten- 

 ing fin. Still a Slapton jack can hardly have the credit for 

 knowing I did this in the case of a gyrating spinning bait, 

 which produces the same ocular deception as a spectro- 

 scope ; though perhaps in the case of a live bait he may 

 have seen that the perch was one which had been bereft 

 of his ff un- downward" tendency if swallowed tail first. 

 And really, putting myself into the same condition of mind 

 as an " astute " jack, who swallows head first, I can see no 

 objection to a perch, as his spinous fin would fold up — or 

 "back" in this case — like a lady's fan if the perch were 

 swallowed head — i.e. handle — first. It is said also that a 

 jack will not touch a toad though he dearly loves a frog, 

 and that he turns from tench, either loathing their slime 

 or from an instinctive knowledge that he can be cured of 

 wounds and of other ailments by "touch of tenches," as 

 Camden affirms and our Izaak Walton endorses, when he 

 says that " the tench is the physician of fishes, for the pike 

 especially, who forbears to devour him, be he never so 

 hungry." Let us give the unmentionable one his due. 

 No sane man would wish to devour his doctor ; and if there 

 is a loathsome creature on earth it is the toad, notwith- 

 standing the "jewel" in his head. I will give the jack, 

 therefore, though not without considerable hesitation, 

 credit for good feeling and good taste in these two respects, 

 but in none other. He would take a pincushion stuck full 



