4-38 ESOCID/E. 



have in them more of state than goodness ; the smaller or 

 middle-sized Pikes being, by the most and choicest palates, 

 observed to be the best meat. 1 ' The flesh of the Pike is of 

 good quality ; and those of the Medway, when feeding on the 

 Smelt, acquire excellent condition, with peculiarly fine flavour. 

 In Lapland, and some other northern countries of Europe, 

 large quantities of Pike are caught during the spawning- 

 season, being then most easily taken, and are dried for fu- 

 ture use. 



Among the various localities in England remarkable for 



o o 



the quality as well as the quantity of their Pike, Horsea 

 Mere and Heigham Sounds, two large pieces of water in 

 the county of Norfolk, a few miles north of Yarmouth, have 

 been long celebrated. Cam den, in his " Britannia," first 

 printed in 1586, says, " Horsey Pike, none like ;" and 

 Horsea Pike still preserve their former good character. I 

 have been favoured, by a gentleman of acknowledged cele- 

 brity in field sports, with the returns of four days 1 Pike- 

 fishing with trimmers or liggers, as they are provincially 

 called in March 1834, in the waters just named ; viz. on 

 the llth, at Heigham Sounds, sixty Pike, the weight alto- 

 gether two hundred and eighty pounds ; on the 13th, at 

 Horsea Mere, eighty-nine Pike, three hundred and seventy- 

 nine pounds ; on the 18th, again at Horsea Mere, forty-nine 

 Pike, two hundred and thirteen pounds ; on the 19th, at 

 Heigham Sounds, fifty-eight Pike, two hundred and sixty- 

 three pounds : together, four days 1 sport, producing two 

 hundred and fifty-six Pike, weighing altogether eleven 

 hundred and thirty-five pounds. Pike have been killed 

 in Horsea Mere Aveighing from twenty-eight to thirty-four 

 pounds each. These meres, or broads, as they are called 

 in Norfolk, are of great extent : Horsea Mere and Heigham 

 Sounds, with the waters connected, arc calculated to include 

 a surface of six hundred acres. As the mode of fishing for 



