146 ANGLING, 



.are recorded as measuring from five to eight feet in 

 length, and its age is said to be as remarkable as 

 its dimensions. The most famous of all pikes is 

 that mentioned by Gesner, who states that it was 

 taken in Suabia in the year 1497 with a brass ring 

 attached to it, on which was engraven in Greek the 

 following sentence (which we doubt was never car- 

 ried into execution) : " I am the fish which was 

 first of all put into this lake by the hands of^ the 

 Governor of the Universe, Frederick the Second, 

 the 5th of October, 1230." If it was 267 years of 

 age, we see no particular reason why it should not 

 (as is alleged) have weighed 350 pounds, and 

 measured nineteen feet long. 



Pike, however, are occasionally taken in the 

 English lakes above thirty pounds in weight, and 

 Dr. Grierson mentions one killed in Loch Ken, in 

 Galloway, which weighed 61 pounds. The colour 

 of this fish in early life is of a greenish hue, but it 

 afterwards becomes rather of a dusky olive brown 

 upon the upper parts, marked on the sides with a 

 lighter mottling of green and yellow, and passing 

 into silvery white on the abdomen. We do not 

 think highly of its flesh, although by many it is 

 held in some esteem. 



