

CHAPTER VIII. 



OBSERVATIONS OF 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 generation, 

 and some not, as namely, of a weed called pickerel- weed, 

 unless learned Glesner 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 adapted 

 for it by nature, do become pikes, 1 but, doubtless, divers 



1 Kichard Franks, in his " Northern Memoirs," attacks Walton for 

 what he has said of the pickerel-weed, in the following terms. "When I 

 met him (Isaac Walton) at Stafford, I urged his own argument upon 

 him, that pickerel- weed of itself breeds pickerel. Which question was no 

 sooner stated, but he transmits himself to his authority viz., Gesner, 

 Dubravius and Aldrovandus. Which I readily opposed, and offered my 

 reasons to prove the contrary ; asserting that pickerels have been fished 

 out of ponds where that weed (for aught I knew) never grew since the non- 

 age of time, nor pickerel ever known to have shed their spawn there. 

 This I propounded from a rational conjecture of the heronshaw, who, to 

 commode herself with the fry of fish, because in a great measure part of his 

 maintenance, probably might lap some spawn about his legs, in regard to 

 adhering to the segs and bull-rushes, near the shallows, where the fish shed 

 their spawn, as myself and others, without curiosity, have observed. And 

 this slimy substance adhering to her legs, &c., and she mounting the air for 

 another station, in all probability mounts with her. Where note the next 

 pond she haply arrives at, possibly she may leave the spawn behind her, 

 which my Compleat Angler no longer deliberated, but dropped his argument, 



