CHAP. viii. THE FOURTH DAY. 109 



bold fish; melancholy because he always swims or rests him- 

 self alone, and never swims in shoals or with company, as roach 

 and dace and most other fish do ; and bold, because he fears 

 not a shadow, or to see or be seen of anybody, as the trout and 

 chub and all other fish do. 



And it is observed by Gesner that the jaw-bones and hearts 

 and galls of pikes are very medicinable for several diseases ; 

 or to stop blood, to abate fevers, to cure agues, to oppose or 

 expel the infection of the plague, and to be many ways medicin- 

 able and useful for the good of mankind ; but he observes that 

 the biting of a pike is venomous, and hard to be cured. 



And it is observed that the pike is a fish that breeds but 

 once a year; and that other fish, as namely loaches, do breed 

 oftener, as we are certain tame pigeons do almost every month; 

 and yet the hawk, a bird of prey, as the pike is of fish, breeds 

 but once in twelve months. And you are to note, that his time 

 of breeding, or spawning, is usually about the end of February, 

 or somewhat later, in March, as the weather proves colder or 

 warmer ; and to note, that his manner of breeding is thus : a he 

 and a^gliApike will usually go together out of a ri^er into some 

 ditcji or. creek, and that there__thg <;pavvne.r casts her eggs, and 

 the melter^hovers over her aH that time that she is casting her 

 spawn, but touches her not. 



I might say more of this, but it might be thought curiosity or 

 worse T and shall therefore torbear it! and take np srt rrrnrh of 

 your attention as to tell you that the best of pikes are noted to 

 be in rivers ; next, those in great ponds or meres ; and the 

 worst, in small ponds. 



But before I proceed farther, I am to tell you, that there is 

 a great antipathy betwixt the pike and some frogs ; and this 

 may appear to the reader of Dubravius, a bishop in Bohemia, 

 who, in his book Of Fish and Fish-ponds , relates what he says 

 he saw with his own eyes, and could not forbear to tell the 

 reader, which was : 



" As he and the Bishop Thurzo were walking by a large pond 

 in Bohemia they say a frog, when the pike lay very sleepily 

 and quiet by the shore side, leap upon his head ; and the frog 



