THE PIKE 141 



7(5'/^, and in a foot-note wrote : " I have very 

 often killed in Loch Ken Perch weighing 4 lbs., 

 and at one time a Pike of 7 ; but this is nothing 

 in comparison of one that was caught about forty 

 years ago in this lake by John Murray, gamekeeper 

 to the Hon. John Gordon of Kenmore. It weighed 

 61 lbs,, and the head of it is still preserved in 

 Mr. Gordon's library at Kenmore Castle." 



Although these early writers were not in agree- 

 ment as to the actual weight of the fish, both 

 stated that the head had been kept, and indeed 

 the greater part of the skeleton of the head is in 

 Kenmure Castle at the present day, to bear witness 

 to the fact that a Pike of exceptional size was once 

 captured. The head was evidently severed from 

 the body too far forward, so that the occipital 

 region of the skull is wanting and the opercular 

 bones are incomplete, but measurements I have 

 made indicate that the fish probably weighed as 

 much as 61 lbs., if it was in good condition, and 

 possibly even 72 lbs. 



These measurements are identical with those of 

 the head of another Loch Ken Pike in the possession 

 of Sir Arthur Henniker-Hughan, Bart., in his house 

 at Parton. This fish was taken in the summer of 

 1904, when a porter at Parton Station saw it 

 stranded near the edge of the lake and lifted it out 

 of the water ; it was in an emaciated condition, and 

 weighed only 39 lbs. 



The enormous difference in weight between a 

 ripe and a spent fish is well known, and is strikingly 

 exemplified by two casts of Pike in the Buckland 

 Collection, very similar in all their proportions 

 except depth and girth ; the one captured in March 



