THE LILLIESHALL PIKE. 101 



have devoured him also, had he not by .wonderful agility * 

 and dexterous swimming escaped the dreadful jaws of this 

 voracious animal.' I find it rather dvtfioult-, hWey*iy l;o : 

 swallow the clerk, whatever the pike might have done if 

 he could have got hold of him ; but, on looking for the 

 authority, it states that the story was inserted as an article 

 of news in a London paper, the very name of which is 

 not given. But another extract is taken from the same 

 print, in which a watch, with a black ribbon and two 

 steel seals, was found in the stomach of a twenty-eight 

 pound pike, the said watch, &c., having been the property 

 of a gentleman's servant (names not recorded), said to 

 have been drowned in the river six weeks ago ; and whether 

 the pike picked the dead man's pocket of his watch, or ate 

 up the man, watch and all, is not stated but here is the 

 pith of the story. ' The watch is still in the possession of 

 Mr. John Koberts, of the Cross Keys, Littleport (names all 

 clear enough in this instance), for the inspection of the 

 public,' and no doubt many of the public came to see the 

 watch and stayed to taste the ale. In all probability 

 both stories are more or less apocryphal. A forty-pound 

 fish is not by any means ' common wares ' now-a-days. I 

 have the head of one that size which was sent me by my 

 late friend ' The Old Bushman,' but that was killed in 

 Sweden. The largest I ever killed was twenty-two pounds 

 and a half; though I have, I think, hooked some of over 

 that size, but it was when spinning, with the old three or 

 four triangle tackle, which is a very risky method of 

 taking large fish ; and they invariably managed, after a 

 run or two, to discard the hooks. The story of the 

 Mannheim pike has so often been referred to that I feel 

 bound not to pass him by. The fish, when caught, was 

 said to be two hundred and sixty-seven years old. The 

 skeleton was preserved in the Mannheim Museum, and 

 was nineteen feet in length ; but, upon being examined 



