134 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



not ; as namely, of a weed called pickerel-weed, unless learned 

 Gesner be much mistaken : for he says, this weed and other 

 glutinous matter, with the help of the sun's heat, in some parti- 

 ward the First. Turkeys were brought from America about 1521. Hops 

 were introduced about 15-24. The pike is among the fish in the Bernera' 

 Treatyse, where the author says : *' The pyke is a good fysshe ; but for he 

 devouryeth so many as well of his owne kynde as of other I love hym the 

 lesse." Large fish stories are told of the longevity and size which the 

 pike has reached ; that to which Walton alludes from Gesner, however, 

 bears the palm, if we except the thousand-pounder of Pliny, who wrote 

 only from distant hearsay. The story, as I find it in Gesner, is, that a pike 

 was taken in a pool near the capital of Sweden {ut tradit Conradus Cel- 

 tis), in the year 1497, on which, under the skin, was discovered a ring of 

 Cyprus brass partly bright, having a Greek inscription round the rim, which 

 was interpreted by Dalburgus, bishop of Worms, to signify : " I am the fish 

 first of all placed in this pond, by the hands of Frederic the Second, on the 

 fifth of October, in the year of grace 1230 ;" which would make its age 

 267 years. Block (in his great work on Ichthyology) says, that " this pike 

 was 15 feet long, and weighed 350 pounds. His skeleton was for a long 

 time preserved at Manheim. The ring about his neck was made with 

 springs so as to enlarge as the fish grew." 



Daniel, in his Supplement (p. 357), tells of a pike taken in the Shannon 

 (having been struck on the head with an oar, as it was entangled among 

 shallows) which weighed 92 pounds ; and Col. Thornton, in his Sporting 

 Tour, of one killed in Loch Spey that weighed 14G pounds. The growth 

 of the pike in favorable circumstances is supposed to average at least four 

 pounds a year. His voracity is such as to destroy all other fish, even his 

 own species, within his reach, except the perch, whose armed back makes 

 him too sharp a morsel, and allows him no reason to fear the tyrant of the 

 floods. His ferocity is attested by many authentic stories quite as re- 

 markable as tliose in the text ; and woe to the troller's fingers if they 

 come too near his shark-like mouth. It is related, among other facts, 

 that one just caught snapped at a dog's tail, and held so fast that the fright- 

 ened quadruped swam across a stream and ran some distance to his home, 

 when tlie pike was disengaged only by prying open his jaws. 



The pike is found in this country of several varieties, from the pickerel 

 (aver.ige weight four pounds), to the enormous muscalonge of the north- 

 »vestern waters, which readies sixty and even more pounds. 



The idea of Walton, that the pike is bred from the pickerel-weed is of 

 •ourse erroneous. Pikes are now ascertained to breed like other fishes ; 

 md the circumstance of their being found in ponds where none were 

 tnown before, may be accounted for by sui)posing that impregnated ova 

 (vere carried there by aquatic birds. 



In whatever way you fish for pike, it is necessary that the hook be 



