THE BOOK OF THE PIKE 



While digging amid the English legends regarding 

 this storied fish, it may not prove uninteresting to 

 note some of the supposed medicinal properties of the 

 pike. One of the most effective remedies for "pleu- 

 risies" was derived from the powdered jawbones, while 

 the heart yielded up a sovereign remedy for par- 

 oxysms. Fair anglers should remember that pul- 

 verized pike's eyes is the last word in cosmetics. "The 

 liver -of a pike — " but why continue? Enough has 

 already been said to prove that the pike was, if not is, 

 a veritable swimming country doctor. 



When we turn our attention from the Old World 

 pike to the fish of America, we are at once confronted 

 with a dearth of legend and story; that is, outside of 

 the Indian tribes, who knew the fish and accredited 

 it with much lore and occult wisdom. The New World 

 angler can but lament the fact that he does not possess 

 tomes and tomes, volumes and volumes of ichthyic 

 literature regarding his game fish. But our fishing is 

 not ancient enough, and we have been too busy and 

 too matter-of-fact to manufacture legends. Legends 

 are the products of leisure and credulity, neither of 

 which is a characteristic of America. We do not 

 believe, for instance, that a pike may be the offspring 

 of a pickerel weed, but we do hear of "sore-teeth days," 

 when muskellunge are supposed to shed their teeth, 

 evidence or proof of which I have been unable to dis- 

 cover, though I have searched the scientific records 

 diligently. Nevertheless, the superstition, if it be that, 

 lingers in many localities. Personally, I have yet to 

 take my first 'lunge with "sore teeth," or to find evi- 

 dence of dental trouble, perhaps because my fishing 

 has not been done in August. Even though science 



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