24 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 



pike have hitherto kept clear of the super- 

 natural j were-wolves and " loups-garou " have 

 no imitators amongst the finny tribes. A 

 ghostly pike, with lambent eyes and distended 

 jaws, is too fearful an idea to be, entertained 

 for a moment. 



But, if the pike historians have refrained from 

 enlarging on supernatural water-wolves, they 

 have by no means curtailed their imaginations 

 in their description of the real fish. The 

 Mannheim pike which attained a length of 

 nineteen feet, and was captured in 1497 at the 

 advanced age of two hundred and sixty-seven 

 years, having in its gills a brass ring, whereon 

 was engraved in Greek, "I am the first fish 

 that was placed in this pond by the hand of 

 Frederick II., Governor of the World, on the 

 5th of October, 1230," may certainly claim to 

 be the most marvellous pike on record. " Its 

 skeleton and ring were long preserved in the 

 Cathedral of Mannheim," says Mr. Pennell in 

 his " Book of the Pike," "but upon subsequent 

 examination by a clever anatomist, it was dis- 

 covered that the bones had been lengthened to 



