202 PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. 



Again, pike should be gutted as soon as killed ; some of the 

 most wholesome fish feed on the most noisome garbage, weeds, 

 insects, &c., many of which are absolutely poisonous to man. 

 If the fish is kept long with such undigested food in its 

 stomach, the whole body becomes shortly impregnated and 

 more or less unfit for food. This has been long well known in 

 the East and West Indies, where such poisonous fish as the 

 tetradon, yellow-bill sprat, c. abound, but yet are eaten with 

 safety by adopting this precaution (vide Linnaeus, &c.). Accord- 

 ing to Sir Emerson Tennent, the sardine, a native of Ceylon, 

 has also the reputation of being poisonous at certain periods of 

 the year, during which it is forbidden by law to be eaten. 

 Probably rapid gutting would prove an antidote in this case, as 

 in other instances of fish poisons alluded to. 



It is a curious circumstance that, although the roe of the 

 pike is so peculiarly unwholesome, according to the authority 

 of several respectable authors, the fish itself is, in the opinion 

 of other writers, best for the table just before the spawning 

 season, and when the milt and eggs are in the greatest state of 

 development. 



' The pike,' says 'Piscator' ('Practical Angler'), 'like grayling, 

 is a strictly winter fish, being in best condition from October to 

 February, and, unlike the trout, is always in best order when 

 full of roe.' Yarrell also says that the Laplanders consider the 

 fish in best condition in spawning time ; and Stoddart mentions 

 that by many English epicures they are considered 'in the finest 

 edible condition when full of roe.' I cannot say for my own part 

 that I ever remember testing the theory, which, for obvious 

 reasons, would be a most unfortunate one if it were to he 

 generally received. The only time when the experiment could 

 be properly tried would be when it was determined to exterminate 

 the breed of pike in some particular water. Xobbcs says that 

 a ' pike and a buck are in season together,' that is, in July and 

 August, but the two following months are, in the estimation of 

 most ichthyologists, almost equally good, and in my opinion the 

 best month of all for a river pike is November. Of the green- 



