LIVE-BAITING. 155 



volume of Conrad Gesner, an actual facsimile of the ring. But 

 (I am thankful to say) these things are all written in the ' Book 

 of the Pike,' to which I refer any of my readers who are curious 

 on the subject That in olden times it was the custom in some 

 countries to put rings into the gills and round the necks of fishes 

 there is no reason to doubt. 1 



As late as 1610 a pike was taken in the Meuse bearing a 

 copper ring, on which was engraved the name of the city of 

 Stavern and the date 1448. Even now the practice is not 

 entirely extinct. Sacred fish are still to be found in different 

 parts of the world. Sir J. Chardin saw, in his travels in the 

 East, fish confined in the court of a mosque, with rings of gold 

 and silver through their muzzles not for ornament, but, as he 

 was informed, in token of their being consecrated to some 

 Oriental Deity, whose votaries, not content to leave trans- 

 gressors to his resentment, took upon themselves the task of 

 retribution, and killed upon the spot an Armenian Christian, 

 who had ventured to violate the sanctity of the place. This 

 eastern custom is alluded to by Moore in his 'Fire Wor- 

 shippers ' : ' The Empress of Jehan-Quire used to divert her- 

 self with feeding tame fish in her canals, some of which were, 

 many years afterwards, known by the fillets of gold which she 

 had caused to be put around them.' 



Her birds' new plumage to behold, 

 And the gay gleaming fishes count, 



She left all filleted with gold, 

 Shooting around their jasper fount. 



Hznda, in the ' Fire Worshippers. 



Persia seems always to have been famous for its pike, to 

 judge from the accounts of a Polish chronicler, whose name is 

 unpronouncable if not unspellable. This writer vouches for 



1 Mr. Pickering, the well-known publisher and collector of angling books, 

 adopted as a sort of punning monogram on the title-pages of some of his 

 volumes, a ring with a pike curved round it ' a pike-ring,' in fact. This is the 

 only pike-ring I know of that can really be brought ' to book. ' 



