THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 133 



CHAPTER VIII. 



Observations of the Luce or Pike, with directions how to fish for him. 



PiscATOR. The mighty luce or pike* is taken to be the tyrant, 

 as the salmon is the king of the fresh waters. It is not to be 

 doubted, but that they are bred, some by generation, and some 



* Esox Lucius. The name Esox is first used by Pliny, who describes a 

 great fish in the Rhine which attained the size of a thousand pounds (! ! !), 

 was caught with a hook attached to a chain {catenato hamo), and drawn 

 out by an ox-bow (bourn jugis). {Hist. JVat., vii., 15.) Aldrovandus thinks 

 the name is a corruption of that given to him anciently by the people on 

 the Rhine, " Snock." Luce we find in Ausonius, Mosella, 120-3. 



" Hie etiam Latio risus praenomine, cultor 

 Stagnorum, querulis vis infestissima ranis, 

 Lucius obscuras ulva, caenoque lacunas 

 Obsidet." 



The farmer of the pools, whose name's a joke. 

 The Latin Lucius, foe of those who croak 

 Among the weeds, where close he keeps his haunts, 

 Ready to pouch the greedy meal he wants. 



Lucius, a well known Roman praenomen, when given to this fish (as he is 

 called Jack, by the English), may have excited a smile, but was pro- 

 bably derived from the Greek Avkos or wolf, from his savage habits. Pilce 

 is easily accounted for from his shape and destructiveness. Pickerel is 

 the diminutive of pike. 



The pike is said to have been brought into England about the time of the 

 Reformation, according to a distich erroneously quoted by Walton when 

 speaking of the carp, from Baker's Chronicles (p. 317, ed. 1663), where it is, 



" Turkeys, Carps, Hoppes, Piccarel and Beer, 

 Came into England all in one year ;" 



i. e., the fifteenth year of Henry VIIL This is, however, all error, pike 

 or pickerel were the subject of legal regulations in the time of Ed- 



