PIKE, 31 
devoured all its smaller compeers. In fact, this 
devouring capacity of the fish, and its great 
voracity, are among its chief characteristics. The 
writer once saw a large jack swimming about 
with a smaller one held crosswise in its jaws, 
and has frequently noticed personal combats, with 
attempts at gorging, by fish of nearly equal size. 
Once in particular was this ferocious quality ex- 
hibited, under what might have been thought 
unlikely conditions. We had been trolling in a 
mountain tarn, and had taken several fish, which 
were thrown into the water-covered bottom of an 
old, slimy punt. Even in this element one pike 
attempted to swallow another of about its own 
size, succeeding so far as to get the smaller 
fish well into its throat. And it may here be 
stated that what once gets impacted into a pike’s 
maw is not likely to return—not alone by reason 
of the ferocity already referred to, but more on 
account of the eel-trap-like arrangement of its 
fine, formidable teeth. Upon one occasion, two 
pike were taken in Loch Tay, the one firmly 
impacted in the mouth of the other. The head 
of the one was tightly inserted up to the termina- 
tion of its gill, and part of the first lower fin was 
in the mouth of the larger one. The fish to- 
gether weighed nineteen pounds. A couple of 
pike were taken by a lad in a somewhat similar 
