fishes, a species which so delights the universal childhood, and which, even in after life, so usefully subserves as bait for larger prey. It is the fish by means of which almost all our youthful anglers commence their experience of the gentle art. "He is a sharp biter," says our Father Walton, "at a small worm, and in hot weather makes excellent sport for young anglers, or boys, or women that love that recreation; and in the spring they make of them excellent minnow-tansies; for being washed well in salt, and their heads and tails cut off, and their guts taken out, and not washed after, they prove excellent for that use; that is, being fried with yolks of eggs, the flower of cowslips and of primroses, and a little tansie. Thus used, they make a dainty dish of meat."

The external aspect of this beautiful little creature is no doubt familiar to all our innumerable readers. It is the smallest species of the genus found in Europe, the greatest length to which it attains seldom exceeding three inches. It makes its appearance in our streams in March, and disappears in October, passing the intermediate months below the sheltering banks, or buried beneath the gravel. It is a very gregarious species, and small shoals are to be found in almost every shallow river, especially in fine clear weather, the species seeming to delight in warmth and sunshine. The minnow usually spawns in the month of June, but its ova are often formed at an after period. It is very prolific, and during the spawning season the head becomes covered by small pale coloured tuber

cles, the parents themselves, especially the males, being at the same time brilliantly adorned by ruddy green and gold. The flesh of the minnow is delicate and well flavoured, but its size is too small to admit of its being of much value as an article of food. It is principally used as a bait for the capture of the larger kinds.

We here name this familiar species also rather from love to the associations of early life, than from any respect we bear to its own character. The loach is entirely a ground fish, living in clear and gravelly streams. It forms an excellent bait for eels, and is also a nutritious food for man, though of a slimy surface, and somewhat forbidding aspect. It feeds on small worms, and various aquatic insects, and is very prolific,-spawning in early spring. Its flesh is highly regarded by many, and some continental people hold it in such esteem, as to cause its transportation from one river to another, at considerable expense and trouble. Frederick the First of Sweden, caused loaches to be carried from Germany, with a view to their being naturalized in his own more northern kingdom.†

* Cobitis barbatula, Linn.

+FAUNA SUECICA.

This "fell tyrant of the liquid plain" is not regarded as indigenous to the waters of Britain, but is said to have been introduced in the time of Henry VIII. That it was well known in England at an earlier period is however evident, both from the book of St. Alban's, printed by Wynken de Worde in 1496, and from the account of the great feast given by George Nevil, archbishop of York, in the year 1466. There is in truth no evidence either of its non-existence in this country at a remote period, or of its importation during comparatively recent times.+

*Esox lucius, Linn.

"That pike," says Mr. Yarrell, "were rare formerly, may be inferred from the fact, that in the latter part of the thirteenth century, Edward the First, who condescended to regulate the prices of the different sorts of fish then brought to market, that his subjects might not be left to the mercy of the venders, fixed the value of pike higher than that of fresh salmon, and more than ten times greater than that of the best turbot or cod. In proof of the estimation in which pike were held in the reign of Edward the Third, I may again refer to the time of Chaucer, already quoted at page 336. Pikes are men

The voracity of this fish is almost unexampled, even in a class remarkable for their omnivorous propensities. Goslings, young ducks, and coots, water-rats, kittens, and the young of its own species, besides every kind of fresh water fish, have been found in the stomach of the pike. It is said to contend with the otter for its prey, and has been known to pull a mule into the water by the nose, and a washerwoman by the foot.

There seems, indeed, to be no bounds to its gluttony, as it devours almost indiscriminately whatever edible substance it meets with, and swallows every animal it can subdue. "It is," says Lacepede, "the shark of the fresh waters, and reigns there a devastating tyrant, as does its prototype in the midst of the ocean; insatiable in its appetites, it ravages with fearful rapidity the streams, the lakes, the fish ponds, wherever it inhabits. Blindly ferocious, it does not spare its species, and devours even its own young; gluttonous without choice, it tears and swallows with a sort of fury the remains even of putrid carcases. This blood-thirsty

creature is also one of those to which nature has accorded the longest duration of years; for ages it terrifies, agitates, pursues, murders, and devours the feebler inhabitants of the waters; and as if, in spite of its insatiable cruelty it was meant it should

tioned in an Act of the sixth year of the reign of Richard the Second, 1382, which relates to the forstalling of fish." "Pike were so rare in the reign of Henry the Eighth, that a large one sold for double the price of a house-lamb in February, and a picherel, or small pike, for more than a fat capon."-BRITISH FISHES, vol. i. p. 384.

receive every advantage, it has not only been gifted with great strength, gigantic size, and formidable weapons, but has also been adorned with elegance of form, symmetry of proportions, and richness and variety of colour."* We cannot altogether agree with this eloquent and ingenious French writer, in his admiration of the general aspect of the pike. Like almost all fishes, it bears about it some beautiful tinting when fresh, but we think its long lank jaws, and sunken eyes, give it rather a malign or diabolical expression, such as we would by no means approve of in any near relation of our own.

A singular instance of its voracity is related by Johnson, who asserts that he saw one killed which contained in its interior another pike of large size, and the latter, on being opened, was found to have swallowed a water rat! We ourself once killed a small pike about seven pounds in weight, and in his interior was found a promising young pike above a pound weight (probably his own eldest son), which he had swallowed, we can scarcely think inadvertently, as the tail continued sticking out of his mouth like a quid of tobacco. The beauty of the thing was, that the heir-apparent had previously swallowed a perch, and this would have been all well enough in its way, had not the perch had a hook in its mouth, and another curving from its tail, the result of which unforeseen fact was an additional piece of gluttony on our own part,-both parent and child being stewed in milk that same

* Quoted in Griffith's Animal Kingdom, vol. x. p. 461.