habit of the pike is to remain under the shelter of water-plants, until his attention is attracted by some passing victim, when, like the tiger springing from the jungle, he rushes forth, seldom, indeed, missing his aim. The jaws and palate of the pike are most formidably armed with sharp teeth, of various sizes.

Of the daring and ferocity of this fish many authenticated instances are on record. Walton says: "Gesner relates, that a man going to a

pond (where it seems a pike had devoured all the fish) to water his mule, had a pike bite his mule by the lips, to which the pike hung so fast that the mule drew him out of the water, and by that accident the mule angled out the pike." And the same Gesner observes, "that a maid in Poland had a pike bite her by the foot, as she was washing clothes in a pond. But I have been assured by a friend who keeps tame otters, that he hath known a pike, in extreme hunger, fight with one of his

otters for a carp that the otter had caught, and was then bringing out of the water." At Trentham, Staffordshire, a pike seized the head of a swan, as she was feeding under water, and gorged so much of it that both fish and swan perished; the keepers perceiving the swan fixed with its head under water for an unusual time, took a boat to go to the bird's assistance, but it was too late. Yarrell says, "The head keeper of Richmond Park was once washing his hand over the side of a boat, in the great pond in that park, when a pike made a dart at it, and he had but just time to withdraw it."

A gentleman in Weybridge, walking one day by the side of the river Wey, near that town, saw a large pike in a shallow creek. He immediately pulled off his coat, tucked up his shirt sleeves, and went into the water to interrupt the return of the fish into the river, and to endeavor to throw it out on the bank by getting his hands under it. During the attempt, the pike, finding he could not make his escape, seized one of the arms of the gentleman, and lacerated it so much that the marks of the wound were visible for a long time. The following anecdote is taken from one of the public papers, August 25, 1846:-"On Thursday, Mr. Collet, in company with a friend from London, was fishing at Shepperton, for barbel, when the bait was taken by a roach, which, in its turn, was instantly seized by a pike. The line was drawn in, the pike continuing its hold upon the small fish till near the water's edge, when it suddenly leaped from its victim, and threw itself on the bank, when both pike and roach were captured. The pike weighed nine pounds; and, on opening it, in its stomach were found three small fish, a water-rat, and a young moor-hen."

Great Size and Astonishing Age.

The voracity of the pike is connected with its rapidity of growth, which necessitates an abundant supply of nutriment, and involves at the same time extreme celerity of digestion. A young pike is recorded to reach the length of about eight inches during the first year, to that of twelve or fourteen during the second year, and of eighteen or twenty inches during the third; after this, its increase for several successive years, where stores of food are abundant, is at the rate of three or four pounds a year. Eight pike, of about five pounds each, have been ascertained to devour eight hundred gudgeons in three weeks. Some idea from this may be formed of the havoc this fish must make in the lakes or rivers in which it is plentiful, and of the necessity of encouraging the breeds of inferior fishes, as the bream and others, for its due maintenance.

The pike not only lives to an extreme age, but attains to extraordinary

dimensions. Pennant speaks of one ninety years of age; and Gesner notices a pike taken at Hailbrun, in Suabia, in 1497, with a brazen ring attached to it, on which was inscribed in Greek characters, "I am the fish which was first of all put into the lake by the hands of the governor of the universe, Frederick the Second, the 5th of October, 1230." This fish must, therefore, have been at least two hundred and sixty seven years old. It is said to have weighed three hundred and fifty pounds.

In the lakes of North America a species of pike, called the muskallonge, grows to an enormous size. It must not be supposed that the larger pike are, the better is their flesh for the table. Walton rightly says, "Old or

very great pikes have in them more of state than goodness, the smaller or middling-sized pikes being, by the most and choicest palates, observed to be the best meat." In warm and sunny weather, the pike mostly swims near the surface, and may be often seen luxuriating in the sunbeams, lulled into a sort of slumber. It is not difficult at such times to draw a wire noose, fastened to the end of a rod or long staff, over its head and body, and land it by a sudden jerk.

The angler or goose-fish grows to a length of four to five feet and weighs from 15 to 70 pounds. Its appetite is most voracious and it feeds upon all kinds of fish. On its head are two elongated bony appendages, curiously articulated to the skull by a joint and capable of movement in any direction. The fish crouches close to the bottom of the sea and by the movement of its pectoral fins stirs up the sand and mud, and agitates the bony appendages amid the turbid cloud produced. The small fishes observing the muddy water and taking the filaments for worms approach to seize them and are instantly engulfed in the capacious jaw of the angler. The voracity of the angler is so great, that when caught in a net with other fish, it generally devours some of its fellow prisoners.

One of the mightiest wanderers in the vasty deep is the shark, referred to in a preceding chapter. He has six rows of teeth, which lie down when they are not used; but the moment a fish approaches, up they all start, ready for action. They are very great teeth, nearly two inches broad, and of a three-cornered shape. The edges are like a saw, and as sharp as the sharpest knife.

No creature, not even man, has much chance against these terrible teeth. If a man falls overboard from a ship, where these monsters abound, he is almost sure to be swallowed by a shark. For a shark can swallow a man with ease; and he is always following in the wake of the ship, to see what he can get.

The female shark lays two eggs, instead of a great shoal of eggs, as most fishes do. The egg has a kind of horny covering, and there are tendrils, or, as they are called, processes, shooting out from the covering. These tendrils get entangled among the sea-weeds, and so hold the egg in one place, instead of letting it drift into danger. The little fish is doubled up in the egg; but by-and-by it makes its way out, and begins a life of cruelty and plunder, as its parents did before it.

We need not wonder that the shark is so dreaded by the sailors. In the midst of the tempest, when the winds are howling, and the night is without moon or stars, a shining light will here and there be seen heaving on the billows. The sailors know full well what it is, and point it out to each other.

The light comes from the scaly body of the shark, which is close at hand. If a seaman is washed overboard, or if the vessel should be wrecked, the shark has a banquet.

CHAPTER VIII.

LIFE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA.

Creatures that Manufacture Limestone-Definition by Professor Dana-Marvelous Builders in the Ocean--New Polyp Growing out of the Side of the Old OneCoral Insects in All Seas-Luxuriance of Coral Life in the Pacific-Varieties of Coral-How the Little Architects get their Materials-Rearing Islands from the Bottom of the Deep-The Bermudas once a Coral Island—The Sea Cucumber— Strange Oriental Food-Harpooning Sea Cucumbers at the Depth of a Hundred Feet-Hundred-Armed Sea-Star-Amazing Power of Reproducing Lost Limbs— Stomachs that go by the Name of Fish-"Five Fingered Jack"-Scavengers of the Ocean-Death on Oysters-How the Star-Fish gets into an Oyster's ShellDroll Polyps—Animal-Plants—Actinia-Enormous Mouth-Sea Anemones— 'Voracity Unparalleled-Life Multiplied by Tearing the Body in Two-Astonishing Tenacity of Animal Life.

HE coral polypi are remarkable for secreting a limestone support or coral stock. Coral is the stony frame which belongs to polypi and may be called their skeleton. Professor Dana calls it the corallum and the coral of a single polyp in the mass is called the corallet. It is formed within the coral animals by secretion, each individual adding to the common structure by the involuntary secretion of calcareous matter.

The corals are the results of a growth analogous to that of the bones in other animals. Coral is a carbonate of lime, like common limestone, and it is taken by the polyp from the sea water or from its own food. Coral polyps produce eggs and young, like other animals, and also multiply through a process of budding, which is like the growth by buds in the vegetable kingdom. A new polyp commences as a mere prominence on the side of an old one; soon the mouth and tentacles appear, then both continue growing, each adding to the calcareous accumulation within and each sending forth new buds to be developed into new polyps. In many species of the coral family each branch. terminates in what is called the parent polyps, these terminal polyps continuing to grow on and at the same time making new polyps for the sides of the branch by budding.

In the brain coral, instead of each polyp having a separate cell with its mouth over the centre of it, there are a large number of polyps coalesced along a single furrow and a row of tentacles along either side. Among