The rapid growth of some fish is very extraordinary. I saw three pikes taken out of a pond in Staffordshire belonging to the present Sir Jervoise Clark Jervoise, two of which weighed thirty-six pounds each, and the other thirty-five pounds. The pond was fished every seven years, and, supposing that store pike of six or seven pounds weight were left in it, the growth of the pike in question must have been at the rate of at least four pounds a year.
About seventeen years since, when visiting the late Marquis of Clanricarde at Portumna Castle, two gentlemen brought to the marquis an immense pike, which they had just caught in the river Shannon, on the banks of which they had been taking their evening walk. Attracted by a noise and splashing of the water, they discovered in a little creek a number of perch driven on shore, and a fish which, in pursuit of them, had so entangled himself with the ground, as to have a great part of its body exposed, and out of water. They attacked him with an oar, that by accident lay on the bank, and killed him. Never having seen any fish of this species so large, they judged it worth the observation of the marquis, who, equally surprised at its magnitude, had it weighed, and to our astonishment it exceeded the balance at ninety-two pounds; its length was such, that when carried across the oar by the two gentlemen, who were neither of them short, the head and tail touched the ground.
Now that I am speaking of pike I may observe that eagles, which were rather numerous hereabout, were not unfrequently seen to pounce on those fish whilst basking near the surface. It was said, however, that when the pike was very large, he had been known to carry the eagle under water; when, from the latter being unable to disengage his talons, he was of course drowned. Indeed, Dr. Mellerborg, a medical gentleman attached to the Uddeholm establishment when I first visited Wermeland, vouched for this being the fact, he himself having once seen an enormous pike, with an eagle fastened to his back, lying dead on a piece of ground which had been overflown, but from which the water had then retreated.
Captain Eurenius also informed me, that he himself was once an eye-witness to a similar occurrence. This was on the Götha river, and at no great distance from Wenersborg. In this instance, when the eagle first seized the pike, he was enabled to lift him a short distance into the air; but the weight of the fish, together with its struggles, soon carried them back again to the water, under which for a while they both disappeared: presently, however, the eagle again came to the surface, uttering at the same time the most piercing cries, and making apparently every endeavour to extricate his talons, but all was in vain, and, after a deal of struggling, he was finally carried under the water.
Captain Eurenius said, moreover, that pike were occasionally taken alive with only the legs and talons of the eagle attached to their backs, the body of the bird having previously rotted off. This, if true, is a curious circumstance; for one would naturally have supposed, that with such a knapsack the fish would have been unable to procure his food, and that he consequently must soon have perished.
In corroboration of these stories I may mention, that when I was in the Orkney Islands a few years ago, I was told of the eagle striking turbot and other fish at sea, when similar results to what I have just stated occasionally took place. At that time, however, I confess, I was a little incredulous on the subject.
There are no waters in Great Britain, with the exception of the river Shannon, where larger pikes are caught than those taken in Loughs Mask and Corrib. It would appear, that in these lakes the fish are commensurate to the waters they inhabit. It is no unusual event for pikes of thirty pounds weight to be sent to the landlords by their tenants; and fish of even fifty pounds have not unfrequently been caught with nets and night-lines. The trouts in those loughs are also immensely large. From five to fifteen pounds is no unusual size, and some have been found that reached the enormous weight of thirty. The perch tribe appear the smallest in the scale of relative proportion. These seldom exceed a herring size, but they too have exceptions, and perch of three or four pounds weight have been sometimes seen. Within fifty years this latter fish has increased prodigiously, and in the lakes and rivers where they abound trouts have been found to diminish in an equal ratio. If any doubt remained touching the fecundity of the perch, some of the Mayo waters would prove it satisfactorily. Half a century since, I have been assured that pike and perch were almost unknown in the rivers of Belcarra and Minola, and the chain of lakes with which they communicate, and that these waters were then second to none for trout-fishing. Within ten years, my cousin tells me that he often angled in them, and that he frequently killed from three to six dozen of beautiful middle-sized red trouts. Now, fly-fishing is seldom practised there. The trout is nearly extinct, and quantities of pike and perch infest every pool and stream. The simplest methods of taking fish will be here found successful, and the lakes of Westmeath will soon be rivalled by the loughs of Mayo.—Jesse—Lloyd—Daniel—Wild Sports.