CHAPTER XVIII. 



VORACITY AND TAMENESS OF A PIKE THE DEATH OF 



PICKLES. 



THE following stones, though not tales of fishing 

 exploits, may be interesting : 



During the years 1825, 1826, and 1827, and indeed 

 for some time before that, and when I was at school 

 at Eton, there was a pike in a small pond at Barton 

 Lodge, near a village called Wingfield, which was 

 about four miles from Windsor, and then in the 

 occupation of a Mrs. Birch, who was a grandmother 

 of mine, and who, by the way, lived to within three 

 weeks of a hundred, in the possession of all her 

 faculties. The said pike had been put into the pond 

 by the footman when it was quite a small one, and 

 having been regularly fed became so tame that upon 

 a certain sign, which was a wave of the hand, being 

 made, he would come up to the surface and take 

 anything thrown in, such as frogs, mice, chickens' 



