464 SUPPLEMENT ON 



individual : this head was ten inches in breadth, which 

 would give to the body a length of eight feet. 



But of all the pikes ever known, the most celebrated, and 

 that respecting whose existence no sort of doubt can be raised, 

 was caught in 1497, at Kaiserslautern, near Manheim: it was 

 nearly nineteen feet in length, and weighed three hundred 

 and fifty pounds. It was represented in a painting preserved 

 in the Castle of Lantern, and its skeleton for a long time was 

 kept at Manheim : it bore a ring of gilt brass with this in- 

 scription, " I am the first fish thrown into this pond by the 

 hands of the Emperor Frederic II. the 5th of October, 1262." 

 It was therefore at least two hundred and thirty-seven years 

 of age, and must indeed have been more. After this instance 

 of longevity it is almost superfluous to mention another pike, 

 spoken of by Rzaczynsky, which was only ninety years old. 



The ancients, moreover, were possessed of positive data on 

 this subject, for Pliny places the pike in the number of the 

 largest fishes, and thinks that it may arrive to the weight of 

 one thousand pounds. 



1-ie multiplication of pikes would be immense if the spawn 

 and the young pikes, in the first year of their life, did not 

 become the prey of many species of fish, and even of the 

 larger of their own species, and of most aquatic birds. More 

 than one hundred and forty-eight thousand eggs have been 

 counted in a female of the middle size. The spawning con- 

 tinues during the three months of spring. The young females, 

 that is, those of three years of age, begin, and the most aged 

 finish it. These last are termed in Germany frog-pikes, be- 

 cause they deposit their eggs at the same time as the frogs. 

 At this period the pike fishery is forbidden at Strasbourg. 

 Then also those which are in the ponds or lakes try to re- 

 ascend into the rivers with which they communicate, and all 

 approach the shores to cast their spawn upon the stones, and 

 on plants which are not sufficiently covered by the water to 



