AND OF STILL WATERS. 31 



intelligence has so often been vaunted, it is 

 only as 1 to 2,500 ; while in the tunny it is but 

 as 1 to 3,700. The only thing that dulls the 

 pike's intelligence is his greed ; but even this 

 may perhaps be caused by only an overweening 

 confidence in his own gastric juices. With him 

 as with so many other voracious animals, to swal- 

 low seems to be his only joy ; palate he has little 

 or none. Indeed, what an ill opinion of his 

 powers of discrimination our ancestors had maybe 

 gathered from Sir Hugh Plat, who, in his "Jewel- 

 house of Art and Nature," published in 1653, 

 gives the recipe for the following toothsome 

 morsel : " Fill a sheep's gut with small un- 

 slaked limestones, and tie the same well at both 

 ends, that no water get therein j and, if any 

 Pike devour it (as they are a ravening fish and 

 very likely to do), she dieth in a short time." 

 Even a pike's " most strongly and rapidly dis- 

 solving gastric juices," as Dr. Fleming calls 

 them, could hardly be expected to do justice to 

 such a morsel. 



That wise woman of ancient days, Dame 

 Juliana Berners, paid special attention to the 



