THE BOOK OF THE PIKE 



the inquisitive angler, much less the angling literatus 

 who derives almost as much enjoyment from angling 

 in books as in fishing in lakes and streams. 



Upon the other side of the water, the pike (for they 

 do not have the small pickerel and muskellunge) is 

 much honored, is fin and scale a part of folklore 

 and legend; indeed, as one digs into the cobwebby 

 past, it is exceedingly difficult to separate fact from 

 fancy. Cholmondeley-PenneH's "Book of the Pike" 

 and 'Trolling for Pike, Salmon, and Trout," the first 

 issued in 1865, the latter somewhat later, are well 

 worth the American angler's time and money, e'en 

 though he must look in second-hand stores for them. 

 William Senior's "Pike and Perch," a volume of the 

 well-known "Fur, Fin, and Feather" series, an English 

 work issued on both sides of the water, is as complete 

 a thing as I know, a single chapter up>on "Some Foreign 

 Relatives," treating of our purely American pikes. 

 John Bickerdyke's "Angling for Pike" is another 

 English work worth having, as is "Pike and Other 

 Coarse Fish," by Cholmondeley-Pennell, a volume of 

 the Badminton Library. In fact, there are so many 

 English books, some of them very English, that I can- 

 not mention them all here ; but I think I have enumer- 

 ated a sufficient number to prove to the curious or 

 interested American angler that he need not lack for 

 information in so far as the Old World pike is con- 

 cerned. Be it said, however, that we Americans 

 would not agree with the directions given in the Eng- 

 lish books for pike angling. 



So ancient are the early mentions of pike and pike 

 fishing and, as pointed out at the commencement of 

 the foregoing paragraph, so interwoven is legend with 



