It looked as though the smaller ones were guarding the
larger one, at least they were accompanying it. They appeared to be very
good friends, and well acquainted, and none of them afraid of being eaten
up, but any of them would have eagerly caught the smaller ones of another
species and swallowed them alive and whole. I do not know that they
devour and eat their own kind, I think not often, for nature has given
the pickerel, when young and small, the ability to move with such
swiftness that it would be impossible for a larger fish to catch them.
They will be perfectly still in the water, and if scared by anything they
will start away in any direction like a streak. They go as if it were no
effort and move with the rapidity of a dart. I have cut some of the large
pickerel open and found whole fish in them, five or six inches long.
But I must finish describing that group of fishes! As they were swimming
up, the smaller ones kept right over the large one. I stood until they
got almost to me and I killed four of them at once and got them all. It
is known that it is not necessary to hit a fish with a bullet in order to
get it.
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