1 84 WA TERSIDE SKETCHES. 



" Eh ! mon, and wur it thee that tuk it ? Aw looved 

 yon fish gradely, that aw did." 



To the end of my days I may not forget the pathetic 

 melancholy of that man's tone and countenance. After he 

 had mourned in silence awhile I brought him round by 

 the aid of the refreshment counter and the murder came 

 out. In one of his fishing trips at holiday time he had 

 captured a pikelet while angling for roach, had brought it 

 home, deposited it in the reservoir, and fed it tenderly. 

 The pike throve, and, according to his narrative, some 

 intimacy sprang up between them ; he saddened as he 

 remembered how the fish would come to the side to be fed, 

 and firmly believed that it knew as well as he did when -the 

 Easter and Whitsuntide holidays, and a consequent glut of 

 gudgeon and minnows, drew near. By-and-by the man lost 

 employment, and in his absence his wife, who had always 

 personally disliked " t' varmint/' left it to its own resources. 

 During that unlucky interval my ruthless and fatal hand 

 robbed the reservoir of its one inhabitant, and that inhabi- 

 tant of its miserable life. The scant comfort left to Tim 

 Bobbin was that the dark uncertainty as to its fate had 

 been removed from his mind by my casual appearance on 

 the junction platform. 



PRACTICAL NOTES ON PIKE AND PIKE-FISHING. 

 The season of 1874-5 furnished numerous additions to 

 our evidence respecting the weight of pike in English 

 waters. The Thames yielded several fish over and above 

 2olb. weight, but the largest specimen was one of 35lb. 

 netted by one of the Royal keepers in Rapley Lake near 



