166 MASCALLONGE. 



mascallonge, ranging from twenty-one to forty-four 

 pounds. Larger fish and far greater numbers may per- 

 haps be taken in wilder waters, and, indeed, in some of 

 the lakes in the remote parts of Canada these fish are 

 innumerable. 



Their length, proportionally to their weight, is, in con- 

 sequence of their peculiar shape, excessive ; a fish of 

 twenty-five pounds' weight will measure forty-six inches 

 in length by six in depth, and a fish of seventy pounds 

 it is presumed would be over six feet in length. Although 

 this is not quite equal to the great pike of Pliny, that 

 weighed a thousand pounds, and was drawn out by a 

 pair of oxen, and caught on a hook attached to an ox 

 chain, it must be regarded by the most fastidious as 

 respectable for the present degenerate days. If the 

 accounts we receive are reliable, the pike of Europe, of 

 which the old song erroneously says : 



" Turkeys, carps, hoppes, piccarel and beer 

 Came into England all in one year," 



vastly surpass ours in size, a fish being taken in a pond 

 near Stockholm with a brass ring round his neck, having 

 an inscription to the effect that he had been put into the 

 pond by the hands of Frederick the Second in 1230, or 267" 

 years before. He weighed 350 pounds, and measured fif- 

 teen feet, and his skeleton was a long time preserved at 

 Manheim. The ring was arranged with springs so as to 

 enlarge as he grew. The Shannon is said to have pro- 

 duced a pike of ninety-two pounds, and Lock Spey one of 

 one hundred and forty-six ; but, when reading of these 

 accounts, I feel like the Yankee, who, when boasting of 



