126 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PARTI. 



artificial paint or patches in which they so much pride 

 themselves in this age. And so I shall leave them both ; 

 and proceed to some observations on the Pike. 



CHAP. VIII. 



on the LUCE or PIKE, with Directions how to fish 

 for him. 



Piscator. THE mighty Luce or Pike is taken to be the 

 tyrant, as the Salmon is the king of the fresh waters. Tis 

 not to be doubted, but that they are bred, some by gene- 

 ration, and some not; as namely, of a weed called pick- 

 erel-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 particular 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 in- 

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

 then Bishop of Worms. 1 But of this no more ; but that 



(1) The story is told by Hakrwill, who in his " Apolojjie of the power and 

 providence of God." fol. O^f.l6S5. P. I. p. 145, says," I will close up this Chap- 

 ter with a relation of Gesner's, in his Epistle to the Emperor Ferdinand, prefixed 

 before his booke De Pitcibut, touching the long life of a Pike which was cast 

 into a pond or poole near Hailebnine in Swevia, with this inscription ingraven 

 upon a collar of brass fastened about his necke. Ego sum iUe pitcit huic stagno 

 omnium primus impontua per mundi rectorix Frederici Sccundi manus, 

 5 Octobris. anno 1230. I am that fish which was first of all cast into this poole 



