CHAP. viii. THE FOURTH DAY. 107 



not, as namely, of a weed called pickerel weed, unless learned 

 Gesner be much mistaken, for he says this weed and other 

 glutinous matter, with the help of the sun's heat, in some par- 

 ticular months, and some ponds apted for it by nature, do 

 become pikes. But, doubtless, divers pikes are bred after this 

 manner, or are brought into some ponds some such other 

 ways as is past man's finding out, of which we have daily 

 testimonies. 



Sir Francis Bacon, in his History of Life and Death, observes 

 the pike to be the longest lived of any fresh-water fish ; and yet he 

 computes it to be not usually above forty years ; and others think 

 it to be not above ten years ; and yet Gesner mentions a pike 

 taken in Swedeland, in the year 1449, with a ring about his neck, 

 declaring he was put into that pond by Frederick the Second 

 more than two hundred years before he was last taken, as by 

 the inscription in that ring, being Greek, was interpreted by the 

 then Bishop of Worms. But of this no more but that it is ob- 

 served that the old or very great pikes have in them more of 

 state than goodness ; the smaller or middle-sized pikes being, 

 by the most and choicest palates, observed to be the best meat ; 

 and, contrary, the eel is observed to be the better for age and 

 bigness. 



All pikes that live long prove chargeable to their keepers, 

 because their life is maintained by the death of so many other 

 fish, even those of their own kind; which has made him by 

 some writers to be called the tyrant of the rivers, or the fresh- 

 water wolf, by reason of his bold, greedy, devouring disposition ; 

 which is so keen, as Gesner relates a man going to a pond, 

 where it seems a pike had devoured all the fish, to water his 

 mule, had a pike bit his mule by the lips ; to which the pike 

 hung so fast that the mule drew him out of the water, and by 

 that accident the owner of the mule angled out the pike. And 

 the same Gesner observes, that a maid in Poland had a pike bit 

 her by the foot, as she was washing clothes in a pond. ,And.I 

 have heard the like of a woman in Killingworth pond, not far 

 from Coventry. But I have been assured by my friend Mr. 

 Seagrave, of ^vhorn I spake to you formerly, that keeps tame 



