214: THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART I' 



CHAPTER VIII. 



Observations of the LUCE or PIKE, itith Directions 

 how tojishfor him* 



PlSCATOR. 



THE mighty Luce or Pike is taken to be the tyrant, 

 as the Salmon is the king, of the fresh -waters. 'Tis 

 not to be doubted, but that they are bred ; some by 

 generation; and some not, as namely, of a weed call- 

 ed pickerel-weed, unless learned Gesncr be much mis- 

 taken : for lie says, this weed and other glutinous mat- 

 ter, with the help of the sun's heat, in some particular 

 months, and some ponds apted for it by nature, do be- 

 come Pikes, but, doubtless, divers Pikes are bred after 

 this manner : or, are brought into some ponds some 

 such other ways as is past man's finding out ; of which 

 we have daily testimonies. 



Sir Francis Bacon, in his History of Life and Death, 

 observes the Pike to be the longest lived of any fresh- 

 water fish, and yet he computes it to be not, usually, 

 above forty years; and others think it to be not above 

 ten years ; and yet Gesrier mentions a Pike taken, in 

 Swedeland, in the year 1449, with a ring about his neck, 

 declaring he was put into that pond by Frederick the 

 Second, more than two hundred years before he was last 

 taken, as by the inscription in that vine:, being Greek, 

 was interpreted by the then Bishop of Worms *. But 



* Either Walton is mistaken in this relation ; or there is in his Author, 

 Gesner, another to the same purpose, with different circumstances. I 

 have not Gesner's book at hand : but in a well known book, entitled the 

 Gentleman's Recreation, I meet with the following extract from him : 



** In the year 1497, a fish was caught in a pond near Haylprum, [forsan 

 " Hailbron] in Suabia; with a brass ring, at his gills, in which were en- 

 " graved these words; / am tie first fish ivbich Frederitk the second, governor 

 " af the -world, put into this pond the fifth of October, 1233." By which it 

 appears, that this fish had, then, lived two hundred and sixty-odd year* 



