156 ^i^^BRITISH ANGLER. P.IL 



'The Trout*s Companion both in Feed atid Soil, 

 But fimpler much^ and taken with lefs Toil, 

 Thd* oft" you mifs him, he again will rife. 

 And, after many Baulks, become an eafy Prize. 



CHAP. IV. 



Of the Pike, Jack, or Luce. 



AS the Salmon is called the King, fo the 

 Luce, Pike, or facky is furnamed the 

 Tyrant of the frefli Waters. It has been a 

 vulgar Opinion, that many of thefe Fifh are 

 produced without Generation, of a certain Ve- 

 getable, called Pickerel-weed, Gefner fays, 

 this Weed and other glutinous Matter, with 

 the Help of the Sun's Heat in fome particular 

 Months, and in Ponds adapted for it by Na- 

 ture, are changed into Pikes. But notwith- 

 itanding the Teftimony of fo learned a Ma«, 

 this Notion of equivocal Production is now u- 

 niverfally exploded, from unqueflionable Ex- 

 periments. There are no Pikes bred after this 

 Manner,and tho' fome^of them are brought into 

 Ponds by W^ays that are paft our finding our, 

 we may however be fure that they have Gene- 

 ration like that of other Animals. 



The great Lord Bacon, in his Hiflory of 

 Life and Death, obferves the Pike to be the 

 longtfb- lived of any frefh Water Fifh, and yet 

 he computes his Age to be not ufually above 

 forty Years. Others think it to be not more 

 than ten Years. But the learned Gefner^ be- 

 fore 



