200 AUSONIUS—SALMO— FIRST MENTION OF PIKE 



The Pike, though known in the thirteenth century, was 

 very scarce. Its price (as fixed by Edward I.) doubled that of 

 the salmon, and exceeded ten times over that of either the turbot 

 or cod. Even as late as the Reformation a large pike fetched 

 as much as a February lamb, and a very small pickerel more 

 than a fat capon. This ratio of prices recalls the rebuke 

 administered by Cato the Censor to those prodigal Romans 

 who were willing to pay more for a dish of fish than for a 

 whole ox. 



In view of the necessity for fish on the fast days, which 

 claimed nearly half the year, the situation of twenty Sees 

 (two Archbishoprics and eighteen Bishoprics) out of twenty- 

 seven on what were then salmon rivers can hardly have been 

 a geographical accident. 



The Carp must also have been a scarce fish in Tudor England. 

 Dame Juliana Berners writes, " Ther be fewe in Englande." 

 Holinshed, a propos of its scarcity in the Thames, states, " It 

 is not long since that kind of fish is brought over into England." 

 Leonard Mascall, however, in his Book of Fishinge (1596), 

 credits a Mr. Mascall of Plumstead in Essex with the intro- 

 duction of carp. 



A hackneyed couplet, frequently quoted for the purpose 

 of establishing the date at which carp and pike were introduced, 

 but so full of mistakes as to be worthless, runs thus : 



" Turkies, Carps, Hops, Pickerell, and Beer, 

 Came into England all in one year." 



Since another version brackets " Reformation, hops, bays, 

 and beer," the year intended is obviously 1532. 



A Pike, or rather the head of a fish so-called, served at supper 

 is said to have caused the end of Theodoric the Goth. In it 

 he imagined he saw the face and head of Symmachus, whom 

 he had just put to death ; straightway he became so terror- 

 stricken that within three days he had joined his victim. 



