PIKE. 387 



in natural history. The lakes of Scotland have produced 

 Pike of fifty-five pounds' weight ; and some of the Irish 

 lakes are said to have afforded Pike of seventy pounds : 

 but it is observed, says honest Isaac Walton, " that such 

 old or very great Pikes have in them more of state than 

 goodness ; the smaller or middle-sized Pikes being, by the 

 most and choicest palates, observed to be the best meat." 

 The flesh of the Pike is of good quality ; and those of 

 the Medway, when feeding on the Smelt, acquire excellent 

 condition, with peculiarly fine flavour. In Lapland, and 

 some other Northern countries of Europe, large quantities 

 of Pike are caught during the spawning season, being then 

 most easily taken, and are dried for future use. 



Among the various localities in England remarkable for 

 the quality as well as the quantity of their Pike, Horsea 

 Mere and Heigham Sounds, two large pieces of water in 

 the county of Norfolk, a few miles north of Yarmouth, have 

 been long celebrated. Camden, in his " Britannia," first 

 printed in 1586, says, " Horsey Pike, none like ;" and 

 Horsea Pike still preserve their former good character. I 

 have been favoured, by a gentleman of acknowledged cele- 

 brity in field sports, with the returns of four days' Pike- 

 fishing with trimmers — or liggers, as they are provincially 

 called — in March 1834, in the waters just named; viz. on 

 the 11th, at Heigham Sounds, sixty Pike, the weight alto- 

 gether two hundred and eighty pounds ; on the 1 3th, at 

 Horsea Mere, eighty-nine Pike, three hundred and seventy- 

 nine pounds ; on the 18th, again at Horsea Mere, forty-nine 

 Pike, two hundred and thirteen pounds ; on the 19th, at 

 Heigham Sounds, fifty-eight Pike, two hundred and sixty- 

 three pounds : together, four days' sport, producing two 

 hundred and fifty-six Pike, weighing altogether eleven 

 hundred and thirty-five pounds. Pike have been killed 



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