THE PIKE 



familiar lines have been passed on by generations of 

 authors to prove that Ausonius, even before the 

 days of Edgar, wrote : 



The wary luce, midst wrack and rushes hid, 

 The scourge and terror of the scaly brood, 

 Unknown at friendship's hospitable board, 

 Smokes 'midst the smoky tavern's coarsest food. 



When we descend to the debatable land of fancy 

 we find the pike figuring in a variety of ways, and in 

 considering the various pike stories that have been told 

 and credited, I may be allowed to suggest that some 

 of the legends, for all we can prove, may be facts. 

 We cannot disprove them. This is a matter, how- 

 ever, on which the reader must exercise his individual 

 judgment. The yarn that has probably most attracted 

 the attention of all who have read fishing literature 

 is that of the wonderful pike which is the Jack-the- 

 Giantkiller object among fish yarns : 



I am the fish which was first of all put into this 

 lake by the hands of the Governour of the Universe, 

 Frederick II., Oct. 5, 1230. 



This is the central face of the Greek inscription 

 on the flattened side of a brass ring said to have been 

 found attached to a grisly old pike in Kaiserweg 

 Lake, where you are required to believe it had 

 lived to the age of 267 years. This fish and its 



