170 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 
as voraciously before and during the season of reproduction 
as at any other time ; consequently, the Loch Awe fish above- 
mentioned, measuring only an inch less in length than the 
Norfolk fish, but weighing 4 lb. less, would probably have 
come within 2 Ib. of the other by the following spawning 
season. 
It is certain that there is no definite standard of size for this 
fish, as there is in the case of such teleosteous fish as herrings and 
sticklebacks. A pike will continue to grow so long as sufficient 
food is supplied to sustain him, and there are many stories of pike 
weighing as muchas 70 lb. or 80 Ib. ; but few, if any, of these 
tales will stand testing by the rules of evidence. For my own 
part, I yield implicit credence to Colonel Thornton’s narrative 
of the capture of two monsters in the Highlands. Reference 
has been made above to the great perch which he caught in 
Loch Lomond ;* having expressed my belief in that, I see no 
reason to withhold it from the measurements given of the great 
pike of Loch Alvie. This fish was 5 ft. 4 in. from the eye to 
the fork of the tail. The Colonel’s scales only went to 2g lb., 
and he was obliged to calculate the weight of his prize, which 
he did at 47lb. or 48lb. Assuming the length given to be 
correct, this estimate tallies with the authentic record of the 
proportions of a pike taken from Lough Romer, co. Cavan, in 
1876, which measured 4 ft. 64 in. long, 25 in. in girth, and 
weighed 372 lb.f 
Garrard, a well-known painter of sporting subjects, and 
afterwards an Associate of the Royal Academy, was with the 
Colonel upon this tour, and painted the portrait of this pike. 
It now hangs in the saloon of the Piscatorial Society in the 
Holborn Restaurant. 
When Whittlesea Mere was drained early in the nineteenth 
century, it is recorded that a pike weighing 49 lb. was left high 
and dry by the falling waters. No such monster was revealed 
* See p. 5. 
+ Field newspaper, May 3oth, 1896. 
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