THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 177 



yet the hawk, a bird of prey, as the pike is a fish, 

 breeds but once in twelve months. And you are 

 to note that his time of breeding or spawning is 

 usually about the end of February or somewhat 

 later in March, as the weather proves colder or 

 warmer ; and to note that his manner of breed- 

 ing is thus : a he and she pike will usually go to- 

 gether out of a river into some ditch or creek, 

 and that there the spawner casts her eggs, and 

 the melter hovers over her all that time she is 

 casting her spawn, but touches her not. 



I might say more of this, but it might be thought 

 curiosity or worse, and shall therefore forbear it, 

 and take up so much of your attention as to tell 

 you that the best of pikes are noted to be in 

 rivers ; next, those in great ponds or meres, and 

 the worst in small ponds. 



But before I proceed further I am to tell you 

 that there is a great antipathy betwixt the pike 

 and some frogs. And this may appear to the 

 reader of Dubravius, a bishop in Bohemia, who in 

 his book " Of Fish and Fish-ponds," relates what 

 he says he saw with his own eyes, and could not 

 forbear to tell the reader ; which was : 



" As he and the Bishop Thurzo were walking 

 by a large pond in Bohemia, they saw a frog, when 

 the pike lay very sleepily and quiet by the shore 

 side, leap upon his head ; and the frog, having ex- 

 pressed malice or anger by his swollen cheeks and 

 staring eyes, did stretch out his legs and em- 

 braced the pike's head, and presently reached 



12 



