THE PIKE. 



17 



fields on the opposite shore. Wishing to check this vagrant 

 habit, he one day seized the gander as he was about to 

 spring into the pure breast of his native element, and, tying 

 a large fish hook to his leg, to which was attached part of 

 a dead frog, he suffered him to proceed upon his voyage of 

 discovery. As had been anticipated, this bait soon caught 

 the eye of a greedy pike, which, swallowing the deadly hook, 

 not only arrested the progress of the astonished gander, but 

 forced him to perform half-a-dozen somersaults on the face 

 of the water ! For some time the struggle was most amus- 

 ing, the fish pulling and the bird screaming with all its 

 might, the one attempting to fly and the other attempting to 

 swim from the invisible enemy ; the gander the one moment 

 losing, and the next regaining his centre of gravity, and 

 casting between whiles many a rueful look at his snow white 

 fleet of geese and goslings, who cackled out their sympathy 

 for their afflicted commodore. At length victory declared 

 in favour of the feathered angler, who, bearing away for the 

 nearest shore, landed on the smooth green grass one of the 

 finest pike ever caught in the castle loch. This adventure 

 is said to have cured the gander of his propensity for 

 wandering." 



This pike fishing by tying the bait to the leg of a goose 

 smacks very much of trimmer fishing with a moveable trim- 

 mer all alive and kicking. I should not suppose that any- 

 body would attempt to entertain their friends with sport of 

 this description, now-a-days, whatever might have been 

 thought about it fifty years ago. As far back as the reign of 

 Henry II., the pike formed part of the coat of arms of the 

 Lucy, or Lucie family, and is one of the earliest recorded 

 instances of fish being used in English heraldry. Old His- 

 torians tell us, " that during the reign of Edward I. this fish 

 was so very scarce and dear, that very few could afi"ord to 

 eat it, the price being double that of salmon, and ten times 

 higher than either turbot or cod." A well known authority 

 says that the reason of this is most likely in the fact, that 

 pike had then only just been introduced into this country, 

 and as a natural consequence was very scarce. Coming 

 down a little later to the time of Edward HI. we find, " that 

 this fish was most carefully preserved, kept in stews, and 

 c 



