ANCIENT ANGLING AUTHORS 219 



Lying . . . being A Work universally useful and 

 entertaining to all Persons, in all Degrees and 

 Stations of Life, of what Denomination soever." 



Ever since Pliny described the esox "as a river 

 fish, which attained the weight of a thousand pounds," 

 Esox lucius has been the fish most favoured 

 in angling romance. The following extract from 

 The Field is a good example of a modern pike 

 story. 



A tame duck was seen to disappear from the 

 surface of Lough Sheelan ; forthwith a barrel, armed 

 with a spoon-bait and two Phantom spinners, was set 

 adrift on the lake. " The fish took the spoon, battled 

 with the barrel for an hour and twenty minutes, and 

 was then landed." The pike weighed 53 Ibs. n oz., 

 and measured 4 feet 5f inches in length, and 29 \ 

 inches in maximum girth (The Field, 7th 

 September 1901). The substitution of a barrel, with 

 which the gigantic pike battles for an hour and 

 twenty minutes, in place of the large circular cork, 

 usually attached to trimmers, affords to this story a 

 charming sense of proportion. 



In 1 80 1, according to Mr Haslewood (Censura 

 Literarid), the following " good pike story " appeared 

 in a newspaper : 



A party angling at Sunbury, one of them sat across 

 the head of the Boat, as a punishment inflicted on 

 him for wearing his Spurs. Another having caught a 

 Gudgeon, stuck it on one of the Spurs, which he not 

 perceiving, in about a few minutes a large Jack bit at 



