290 SPORTING STORIES 



cackled out their sympathy for their afflicted commodore. 

 At length victory declared in favour of the feathered 

 angler, who, bearing away for the nearest shore, landed 

 one of the largest pike ever caught in the Castle loch. The 

 adventure is said to have cured the gander of his propensity 

 for wandering. 



In the reservoir near Glasgow the country people were 

 reported to be in the habit of employing ducks in this 

 novel mode of fishing. Thomas Barker, author of the Art 

 of Angling-, published in 165 1, gravely assures us that "the 

 principal way to take a pike in Shropshire is to procure a 

 goose, take one of the pike lines, bait it, tie the line under 

 the left wing and over the right wing of the goose, turn 

 it into a pond where pike are, and you are sure to have 

 some sport." 



But, after all, that is not so remarkable as the method 

 which a Mr Darcy, of Oxford, adopted for taking barbel. 

 " Darcy," says a writer in the New Monthly Magazine, 

 " kept a music shop at Oxford, and was an excellent 

 swimmer. He used to dive into a deep hole near the Four 

 Streams, a bathing-place well known to the Oxonians, and 

 having remained under water a minute he returned with a 

 brace of barbel, one in each hand. Darcy said that the 

 fish lay with their heads against the bank, in parallel lines, 

 like horses in their stalls. They were not disturbed at 

 his approach, but allowed him to come quite close to them 

 and select the finest." 



