PIKE, MUSKELLUNGE AND PICKEREL. 281 



of the vernal leaves, the broods being known as "Ice-Pike," "Frog- 

 Pike," and "Blossom-Pike." 



Benecke's estimate of the number of eggs is undoubtedly too low. 

 Buckland states that in a Pike of twenty-eight pounds, the roes weighed 

 twenty-one ounces, and contained 292,320 eggs, while in one of thirty-two 

 pounds, there were 595,000 eggs, weighing five pounds. 



Benecke's period of incubation would be too short for more northern 

 climates. In Great Britain and Sweden, they require from twenty-five to 

 thirty days to come to maturity. 



Seeley states that the young fish breed at the age of three years, and 

 that the females are larger than the males. 



The newly hatched Pikes grow rapidly when provided abundantly with 

 food. A yearling fish in Prussia is often a foot in length, and according 

 to Seeley a two-year-old may with exceptional feeding, weigh six or seven 

 pounds. 



Wittmack gives a number of statements from authorities in different 

 parts of Germany, showing the annual rate of growth of the Pike, which 

 appears to vary from two to three pounds, the maximum size attained 

 being from forty-five to seventy pounds. He cites one instance in which, 

 in two summers, a few individuals, liberated in a pond full of a species of 

 carp, grew from the weight of one and three-quarters to that of about ten 

 pounds. 



As to the size to which a Pike may ultimately attain, there exist import- 

 ant differences of opinion. Frank Buckland naively remarks that " from 

 the days of Gesner down, more lies, to put it in very plain language — have 

 been told about the Pike than any other fish in the world ; and the greater 

 the improbability of the story, the more particularly is it sure to be 

 quoted." This savage thrust at Gesner and his commenters, has especial 

 reference to the story of that enormous fish, nineteen feet in length, 

 caught in the year 1497, in a pool near Hailprun in Suabia, and which 

 carried attached to its gills, a brass ring upon which was a Greek inscrip- 

 tion, which said: — " I am that fish that was first put into this lake by the 

 hands of the Emperor Frederick II, on the fifth day of October, 1230." 

 The skeleton of this fish was said to have been preserved at Mannheim for 

 many years, and there is a tradition that some inquiring anatomist dis- 

 covered that it had been lengthened by the addition of se\eral vertebrae. 

 While it is true that '• the lecrends of fishes with rings bearing ancient 



