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backward the fish was lifted out of the water and secured. 
Another of these fishes was known to have seized the foot 
of a young woman as she held it naked in a pond. 
A more modern instance of similar ferocity is given from 
Mr. Pennell’s “Angler Naturalist,” as quoted in the “Athenfeumj” 
and the half-starved condition of the fish in this case will help 
us to understand the influence which was at work in the other 
instances, to drive these fishes to the remarkable manifestations 
of boldness reported of them: — A young gentleman, “aged 
fifteen, went with three other boys to bathe in Inglemere Pond, 
near Ascot race-course, in June, 1856; he walked gently into 
the water to about the depth of four feet, when he spread out 
his hands to attempt to swim; instantly a large fish came up 
and took his hand into his mouth as far as the wrist, but 
finding he could not swallow it, relinquished his hold, and the 
boy turning round, prepared for a hasty retreat out of the 
pond; his companions who saw it also scrambled out as fast as 
possible.” He “had scarcely turned himself round when the 
fish came up behind him, and immediately seized his other 
hand crosswise, inflicting some very deep wounds on the back 
of it; the boy raised his first bitten and still bleeding arm, and 
struck the monster a hard blow on the head, when the fish 
disappeared.” Seven wounds were dressed on one hand, “and 
so great was the pain the next day, that the lad fainted twice; 
the little finger was bitten through the nail, and it was more 
than six weeks before it was well. The nail came off, and the 
scar remains to this day. A few days after this occurrence one 
of the woodmen was walking by the side of the pond, when 
he saw something white floating.” It was found to be a large 
Pike in a dying state, and he brought it to the shore, “and 
the boy at once recognised his antagonist. The fish appeared 
to have been a long time in the agonies of death, and the body 
was very lean and curved like a bow. It measured forty-one 
inches, and died the next day. There can be no doubt the 
fish was in a state of complete starvation. If well fed it is 
probable it might have weighed from thirty to forty pounds.” 
In Dr. Crull’s “Present State of Muscovy, (1698,)” mention is 
made of a Pike that when taken was found to have an infant 
child in its stomach. 
A more ordinary occurrence has been the seizure of ducks 
