THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 131 



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 1446, 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 observed, 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, that, 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 whom I spake to you formerly, that 

 keeps tame otters, that he hath known a Pike, in extreme 

 hunger, fight with one of his otters for a Carp that the otter 

 had caught, and was then bringing out of the water. I have 

 told you who relate these things ; and tell you they are persons 

 of credit; and shall conclude this observation by telling you, 

 what a wise man has observed, " It is a hard thing to persuade 

 the belly, because it has no ears."f 



* The story is told by Hakewill, who, in his Apolcgie of the Poirer and 

 Providence ofGd, fol.'Oxf. 1635, part i. p. 145, says, " I will dose up this 

 chapter with a relation of Gesner'-, in his epistle" to the Emperor Ferdi- 

 nand, prefixed before his booke De Piscilw, touching the long life of a 

 Pike w'lich w;is ca~t into a pond, or poole, near Hailebrune in Swevia, 

 with this inscription engraven upon a collar of brass fastened about his 

 necke. ' Ego sum ille pisci-^ huic stagno omnium primus impositus per 

 innndi rectoris Frederin Secundi inanus, 5 Octobris, anno 1230.' 1 am that 

 tish which was first of ;ili cast into this poole l>y the hand of FredeTicke the 

 Second, governour of tiie world, the fift of October, in the year 1230. He 

 was again taken up in the year 1497, and by the inscription "it appeared he 

 had then lived there two hundred and sixty-seven yeares." 



t Bowlker, in his Art of Angling, before cited, page 9, gives the following 

 instance of the exceeding voracity of this fish : " My father catched a Pike 



