him, and is soon carried by its weight to the bottom of the stream.

There is not enough of variety in the details of otterhunting to make it necessary for us to dwell further on them; we therefore proceed to the natural history of the otter. From the nature of the otter's food, and from the animal being so much an inhabitant of the water, it has been a question among those who possessed but little knowledge of natural history, whether he was of the nature of a land animal or a fish. Thus we find the following conversation between one of Isaac Walton's anglers and a huntsman engaged in the pursuit of the otter: "I pray, honest huntsman," inquires Piscator, "let me ask you a pleasant question; do you hunt a beast or a fish?" "Sir," replies the otter hunter, "it is not in my power to resolve you; I leave it to be resolved by the college of Carthusians, who have made vows never to eat flesh. But, I have heard, the question hath been debated among many great clerks, and they seem to differ about it; yet most agree that her tail is fish; and if her body be fish too, then I may say that a fish will walk upon land; for an otter does so, sometimes five or six or ten miles in a night to catch for her young ones or to glut herself with fish. And I can tell you, that this dog-fisher, for so the Latins call him, can smell a fish in the water a hundred yards from him." The above allusion to the Carthusians, relates to the fact, that the brotherhood of that monastery at Dijon, though prohibited the use of animal food, were permitted to eat the flesh of the otter on maigre days.

The place assigned to the otter in Cuvier's system is near the sub-division of polecats and martens, from which animals it presents but little deviation, except that the teeth are more developed in certain parts, the feet webbed, and adapted for swimming, and the tail flattened horizontally. Otters are aquatic in their habits, but are incorrectly termed amphibious animals, since they are not furnished more than other animals with the power of breathing both air and water in the same stage of their existence. They feed principally on fishes, but they sometimes prey on the smaller mammalia, which inhabit the banks of lakes and streams. The flattened tail of these animals appears to be rather an organ of ascent and descent than a propelling organ, and the forward motion is effected chiefly by strokes of the feet. The otter's tail is covered with longer and coarser fur than the body, but there are, generally speaking, two kinds of fur, one consisting of long shining hairs, mostly of a brownish colour, the other woolly, much shorter and thicker, and generally of a greyish hue. The character of the fur, however, differs with the climate: the farther north the animal is found, the more valuable, because the more dense and silky is its fur. Otters are in a great measure indifferent to cold and moisture. Their fur has the same property as the feathers of diving birds in not becoming wetted. On the occasion of a rapid frost in cold countries, they are sometimes driven out from their recesses, and are then hunted with much

success.

The Common Otter (Mustela Lutra) is found in all parts of Europe, and in the colder parts of Asia and America. It averages about two feet in the length of its body from the nose to the tail, and the tail itself is sixteen inches long. It is very short on the legs, and has a singular aspect, owing to its large flat head and short ears. The eyes are very small, and placed near the nose; the neck is thick; the general colour of the animal is blackish brown, with a white spot under the chin and a small one on each side of the nose. The nostrils are provided with an apparatus which prevents the water from entering when the animal moves speedily along.

"The otter," says Pennant, "shows great sagacity in forming its habitation; it burrows under-ground in the banks of some river or lake, and always makes the

entrance of its hole under water, working upwards towards the surface of the earth, and before it reaches the top, it adopts the fashion of builders of houses for ourselves, who make several floors to accord with the necessities and conveniences of the occupants. It finishes its lodge by making a minute orifice for the admission of air, and the more effectually to conceal its retreat it contrives to make even these little air-holes in the midst of some thick bush." Though this dwelling of the otter is always in a moist situation, the animal takes care to have a dry place to which it can resort; and thus, when the water rises and overflows part of its habitation, it has only to take to an upper story. Though the limbs of the otter seem peculiarly adapted for the water, yet it moves with facility on shore likewise, and may even be said to run rapidly.

The young otters first make their appearance about the beginning of April. They are generally four in number, and are attended by the mother with great assiduity and caution. The affection of the female otter for its young is so great, that she will often suffer herself to be killed rather than desert her progeny. Professor Steller, informs us, that when the young ones are taken away from the mother, the latter will follow the person carrying them off, and manifest her sorrow by crying, almost like a human being, while the young otters also cry out for aid in a tone of voice very much resembling the crying of children.

On one occasion, (he writes,) when I had deprived an otter of her progeny, I returned to the place eight days after, and found the female sitting by the river, listless and desponding, who suffered me to kill her on the spot, without making any attempt to escape. On skinning her, I found she was quite wasted away with sorrow for the loss of her young. Another time I saw an old female otter sleeping by the side of a young one, about a year old. As soon as the mother perceived us, she awoke the young one, and enticed him to betake himself to the river; but as he did not take the hint, and seemed inclined to prolong his sleep, she took him up in her fore-paws, and plunged him into the water.

The otter is naturally of a very ferocious disposition, but when taken young, and properly treated, there have been instances of its becoming so tame as to be employed in fishing for its master. We find an allusion to the taming of the otter in the following lines.

Should chance within this dark recess betray The tender young, bear quick the prize away. Tamed by thy care the useful brood shall join The watery chase, and add their toils to thine. From each close lurking hole shall force away, And drive within their nets the silver prey: As the taught hound the timid stag subdues, And o'er the dewy plain the panting hare pursues. In taming the otter, the disposition of the animal seems greatly to depend on the sort of food with which he is provided. If he is supplied with animal food, especially his favourite food of fish, at too early an age, he becomes sulky, disobedient, and vicious; but if he is suckled along with young puppies, as is sometimes done, or fed upon bread and milk, he remains gentle and docile, and will even show considerable attachment, with some knowledge of places and persons. In proof whereof we give the following anecdotes.

A person near Inverness, procured a young otter, and brought it up on milk diet. It became so tame as to follow him wherever he chose, and, if called by its name, it immediately obeyed. When fearful of danger from dogs, it sought the protection of its master, and would seek to spring into his arms for greater security. It was frequently employed in taking fish, and would sometimes take eight or ten salmon in a day. If not prevented, it always made an attempt to break the fish behind the anal fin, which is next the tail; and as soon as one was taken away, it always dived in pursuit of more. It was equally dexterous at the sea-fishing, and took great numbers of

young cod and other fish there. When tired it would refuse to fish any longer, and was then rewarded with as much as it could devour. Having satisfied its appetite, it always coiled itself round, and fell asleep, in which state it was generally carried home. Another person kept a tame otter with his dogs, and the animals were upon the most friendly terms. It is not a little remarkable, that even dogs trained to hunt the otter would not offer this tame one the least molestation, and even showed no reluctance to hunt any other otter while their favourite was in their company.

Bishop Heber relates that in India he saw a number of otters tethered to stakes along the edges of the water and made use of as hunters of the fish, which they pursued so adroitly as to drive them into the nets and there only. The largest fish they laid hold of and brought to the shore.

FRESH-WATER FISH.

No. IV. THE JACK OR PIKE.

Our plenteous streams a various race supply,
The bright-eyed perch with fins of various dye;
The silver eel, in shining volumes roll'd;
The yellow carp, in scales bedropt with gold;
Swift trouts, diversified with crimson stains,

And pikes, the tyrants of the watery plains.-POPE.

"THE mighty Luce or Pike," says Walton, " is taken to be the tyrant, as the salmon is the king, of the fresh waters." The aspect of the pike is repulsive: it is a ragged, savage, ugly looking fish; the head large and very much depressed; the upper jaw broad and shorter than the lower, which turns up a little at the end, and is marked with minute punctures; the teeth are very sharp, disposed in the upper jaw only in front, but in both sides of the lower, as well as in the roof of the mouth and often on the tongue; the number being said to be no less than seven hundred, without reckoning the farthest of all, or those nearest the throat; those situated on the jaws are alternately fixed and moveable; the eyes are small; the gape very wide, so that the pike can seize and swallow large prey. The pectoral fins are situated immediately behind the gill openings; the ventral fins are about the middle of the body; and the dorsal and anal are far back near the tail, which is very stout, slightly forked or rather lunated. The whole structure of the

fish shows that the posterior part of the body is the grand agent which enables it to rush with great velocity direct its upon The usual colour of this fish is a prey. pale olive gray, deepest on the back, and marked on the sides by several yellowish spots or patches; the abdomen is white, spotted slightly with black: when in its highest perfection the colours are often more brilliant, the sides being of a bright olive, with yellow spots, the back dark green, and the belly silvery: the gills too are of a very bright red, indicative of a vigorous circulation. The pike is said to occur in Holland of an orange colour, marked with black spots; with rather small, hard, and oblong scales. The stomach of the pike accords with its voracious habits, it being composed of membranous folds whereby it is capable of great dilation.

The names, Jack and Pike, applied to this fish, are mere verbal distinctions. The genus or rather family to which the pike belongs comprises three divisions, the individuals in one division being very unlike those of another. These divisions are Esox, the pike, properly so called; Belone, the garfish, and Exocetus, the flying fish.

The most prevalent character of all the fishes that have been classed among the pikes, is that of the dorsal fin being placed very far backward, so as to be close to the caudal; while the anal fin is immediately below it. The unusual disposition of these fins influences that of the others: the ventrals are thus placed in the middle of the body, or about halfway between the pectoral and the caudal: the latter is

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always forked; and the former, in general, pointed. The whole of these fishes are excessively voracious, and destructive to others: hence Lacepede has justly said of the common pike, that it is the shark of our ponds and rivers. We accordingly find the mouth to be particularly large, the snout often greatly lengthened, and the teeth, in nearly all instances, numerous and sharp. There is no instance of a second dorsal or adipose fin, as in the salmons; or of the belly being sharp or serrated, as in the herrings. As to other parts of their structure, it may be mentioned, that the margin or edge of the upper jaw is formed by the intermaxillary bones; or, at least, when this is not the case, the maxillaries are without teeth, and partially concealed. Excepting the common pike, and a few others nearly allied SWAINSON. to it, the whole of the remainder are marine fishes.

In the Saturday Magazine, vol. ix., p. 153, several instances of the voracity of the pike are recorded, to which we may add a few more.

The following anecdote is related in Fuller's Worthies:

A cub fox, drinking out of the river Arnus, in Italy, had his head seized on by a mighty pike, so that neither could free themselves, but were ingrappled together. In this contest, a young man runs into the water, takes them out both alive, and carrieth them to the Duke of Florence, whose palace was hard by. The porter would not admit him, without a promise of sharing his full half in what the duke should give him; to which he, (hopeless otherwise of entrance,) condescended. The duke, highly affected with the rarity, was about giving him a good reward, which the other refused, desiring his highness would appoint one of his guards to give him a hundred lashes, that so his porter might have fifty according to his composition. And here followed. my intelligence leaveth me, how much further the jest was

stomach with whatever it can find in the way of food: The voracious appetite of the pike causes it to fill its no sort of offal is refused; every kind of animal substance both living and dead is received; it will even of the angler: it preys upon rats, mice, and frogs, as swallow the plummet, and the clay and bran groundbait well as the young of ducks, geese, swans, and other aquatic birds. We read that

In the year 1798, as two gentlemen were angling in a pond near Warnham, in Sussex, a pike, of only about seven pounds weight, seized a dog that was lapping the water and was fairly landed, holding on by the dog; so also in the Blackwater, near Youghall, a yearling calf was seized by a pike, and succeeded in landing him: and there could be no greater proof of his voracity, than this attempt to swallow a calf, when his stomach, upon being opened, was found to contain a large perch and a water-rat, both entire.

says,

The pike is so much accustomed to overcome and devour every other fish that it encounters, that it seems almost to have lost the instinct of discrimination, for it will devour its own progeny with as little reluctance as any other. It has also been known, when excited by hunger, to contend with the otter for its prey; but, as Walton "It is a hard thing to persuade the belly, because it has no ears." The digestive powers, too, of the pike are as remarkable as its greediness. Walton says, that a pike will devour a fish of his own kind "that shall be bigger than his belly or throat will receive, and swallow a part of him, and let the other part remain in his mouth till the swallowed part be digested, and then swallow that other part, that was in his mouth, and so put it over by degrees." It cannot perhaps be denied that the pike sometimes appears thus with the tail of a fish hanging from its mouth, for the portion that enters the stomach is quickly dissolved, and the rest soon follows; but still the act of respiration must be carried on, for mouth for its action to inhale the water, and to pass it which purpose sufficient space must be left within the through the gill-fringes with freedom, without which, strangulation would ensue. "We therefore conceive," says Mr. Blaine, "that such a bait could be only thus partially swallowed, as would not obstruct the action of the mouth and gills. Indeed there are not wanting instances

in which both pike and jack have been effectually choked by too large a bait."

With abundance of food the pike grows rapidly; often attains an enormous size, and is scarcely injured by any foulness of the water. The famous pike caught by Colonel Thornton, in one of the Scotch lakes, in the year 1784, measured four feet four inches from eye to fork, and weighed nearly fifty pounds. The colonel had him upon the line for an hour and a quarter before his strength was exhausted, and the tackle would not have held him if the colonel had not been in a boat, so as to humour him by rowing: the colonel says, that on opening his jaws, "so dreadful a forest of teeth, or tusks, I think I never beheld." In some of the Irish rivers, pike of seventy pounds' weight have been caught. Major Bingham relates, that a pike was taken from the Shannon, which, when weighed, "somewhat exceeded ninety two pounds." But these and many other examples of extraordinary dimensions of pike are exceptions to the general average. The natural term of their lives is not known; but Mr. Blaine says, that individual fish have been familiar to persons forty or fifty years. Their majority, he adds, should be computed from the time they change their diminutive title of jack for that of pike, which is stated to take place when they have attained to a linear measurement of twenty-two inches, or to a bulk equal to three pounds; but it is more common among anglers to call all under five pounds jack, and all above pike.

During the summer months the digestive organs of the pike and jack are somewhat torpid; and their abstinence is no less singular at this time than their voracity at other times. It is remarkable too that this abstinence occurs at about the season of spawning; and the circumstance is fortunate, as Mr. Blaine remarks, for were the appetite as usual, few young fry could escape: " during the summer they are listless, and affect the surface of the water, where, in warm sunny weather, they seem to bask in a sleepy state for hours together; and at these times they frequently get snared by the wire-halter of the poacher. It is not a little remarkable also, that smaller fish appear to be aware when this abstinent state of their foe is on him; for they, who at other times are evidently impressed with an instinctive dread at his presence, are now seen swimming around him with total unconcern. At these periods no baits, however tempting, can allure him; but, on the contrary, he retreats from everything of the kind. Windy weather is alone capable of exciting the dormant powers; and thus, if a cool sharp breeze springs up, he may be sometimes tempted to run; but even then he will rather play with the bait, and may be seen even sailing about with it across his mouth; after doing which he commonly ejects it. This inaptitude to receive food with the usual keenness, continues from the time they spawn, until the time of their recovery from the effects of it; and thus pike and jack fishing are not often productive of much sport between March and October." Mr. Blaine is disposed to think that the decreased voracity of these fish during the heats of summer, is, in some measure, likewise influenced by the increase of temperature. The animal thrives best in frigid climes, and the further we proceed north within certain limits, the larger is his growth: thus, in the Canadian lakes, the pike exists in vast numbers, and grows to the length of four and five feet; and he does the same in the cold waters of Lapland also, disappearing, according to Wahlenburg, in geographical distribution with the spruce fir.

The spawning time of the pike and jack is March or April, according as the season is more or less advanced, and depending also on the situation of the water. They proceed in pairs from the rivers to the creeks and ditches: but when confined in still water they seek the most retired part, often a weed-bed, or remain near the shallows and deposit their ova among aquatic plants,

such as the reed and the rush. When the operation is complete they retire to the deeper waters, leaving their spawn to supply new races of their kind, or as a prey to many aquatic animals such as the duck, which is particularly fond of the spawn of the pike. It is said that this bird not only consumes great quantities of it, but carries it off adhering to the feathers, without its being injured or having its vitality destroyed; by which means pikes have often appeared in ponds where there were none before; a fact which gave rise to many conjectures before this simple explanation was discovered.

The pike are fond of dull, shady, and unfrequented waters, with a sandy, chalky, or clayey bottom. In summer they are found among or near flags, bulrushes, and water docks. They seldom seek a rapid stream; their favourite retreat being in the vicinity of a whirlpool or sharp bend of the stream. In winter they retire into the depths, under clay banks, or under a projecting stone or stump of a tree.

The young fry grow rapidly and are said to attain the weight of two pounds during the first year, and to gain a pound or more every subsequent year. This may perhaps be true up to a certain stage of growth; but so plentiful are tales of wonder in Natural History that it becomes necessary to exclude a variety of newspaper and other relations of pike, as well as of other animals, remarkable for size and weight as well as extraordinary age, or sagacity. This exclusion may, it is true, make us often lose a good story, which, however, unless accompanied with a caution, (and this generally spoils the story,) had better be left untold. The story told by Gesner is often repeated, that a pike was once caught at Heilbrun, in Germany, which had a brass ring attached to it, intimating that it was put into the lake in the 1230; so that being captured in 1497 it must have been 267 years old.

year

One would have been incredulous on this subject, (says Mr. Swainson,) but Gesner further asserts that the skeleton, nineteen feet in length, was long preserved at Manheim as a great curiosity. It would be well worth the trouble of inquiry, if any fragments of this gigantic monster are yet place: for ourselves, we confess our entire disbelief that in existence, or if any records regarding it exist at that such a pike, and of such an age, ever existed.

There is a curious method, according to Pennant, of taking pike in the fens of Lincolnshire. The fishermen use a basket open at the top and bottom; this they plunge down behind the stern of their punts or fenboats, and by poking with a stick, ascertain whether there the basket, and, throwing the fish into the punt, lower is a fish or not; if there is one they immediately raise the basket to catch another.

Thou, too, great father of the British floods!
With joyful pride survey'st our lofty woods,
Where towering oaks their growing honours rear,
And future navies on thy shores appear,
Not Neptune's self from all her streams receives
A wealthier tribute than to thine he gives.

No seas so rich, so gay no banks appear,

No lake so gentle, and no spring so clear,
Nor Po so swells the fabling poet's lays,
While led along the skies his current strays,
As thine.-POPE.

How many and varied are the associations which the name of the river Thames suggests to the mind! How proudly may we compare this river with those which water foreign lands, and point to its commercial importance as a compensation for its comparatively limited size! It is no exaggeration to say, that more wealth floats on the bosom of this river than on any other in the world, and that no other river is visited by the natives of so many climes.

But it is not only in a commercial point of view that the Thames demands our notice. Its banks are studded with beautiful towns, villages, fields, gardens, and country residences, giving to the scenery all those characteristics which mark a highly cultivated country. These objects are well worthy of a little attention, and we propose, in the course of a series of articles, to take a rapid glance at the chief objects of interest which present themselves, from the source of the river, in GloucesterVOL. XVIII.

shire, to its termination in the English Channel, as also the associations connected with places situated on its banks.

The general course of the Thames is from west to east, passing through or between the counties of Gloucester, Wilts, Berks, Oxford, Buckingham, Surrey, Middlesex, Essex, and Kent. It derives its origin from a copious spring, called the Thames Head, about three miles south-west of the town of Cirencester, in Gloucestershire. The river is generally known by the name of the Isis, until it receives the waters of the Thame in Oxfordshire, after which it is called the Thames,-a name supposed to be compounded of the other two. From its source it flows as a small rivulet to Cricklade, in Wiltshire, near which it receives several tributary streams, from whence its course leads towards Lechlade, a town situated near the confines of Berkshire, Gloucestershire, and Oxfordshire, where it receives the waters of the Lech and the Colne, and becomes navigable for vessels of a hundred tons' burden, although at a distance, measured along the river, of a hundred and forty miles above London. The river then passes in succession the towns of Buscot, Farringdon, Stanton Harcourt, and Ensham, until it reaches the city of Oxford, its course hitherto having been somewhat northward. It then takes a sudden bend towards the south; and, after passing near Ifley and Nuneham, receives the river Thame on its

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