282 AMERICAN FISHES. 
dates have not that quality of veracity which is required by science,’ it is 
also true that 1t was the practice in early days to fasten inscribed rings in 
the gill covers of fishes. Pennell states that in 1610, a Pike was taken in 
the Meuse, bearing a copper ring dating 1448. It is very curious that no 
English writer on the Pike seems to have taken pains to investigate the 
German records which undoubtedly contain accurate and critical esti- 
mates of the value of this tradition. 
Buckland seems disposed to doubt the existence of Pike larger than 
those which have come ‘‘ under his own personal knowledge,’’ a method 
sufficiently skeptical no doubt, but not necessarily scientific. He saw one 
forty-six and a half inches long, weighing thirty-five pounds, and ascer- 
tained to be about thirteen years old, another thirty inches long, weighing 
twenty-four pounds, another of forty-three inches, and _ twenty-eight 
pounds, and forty-four inches and thirty-two pounds, and two others, one 
forty-six and a half inches, and thirty-five pounds, and one forty-six 
inches, and thirty-six pounds, were taken by his friend Mr. Jardine. 
Daniell, in his ‘‘ Rural Sports,’’ speaks of a Scotch example, seventy-two 
pounds, and over seven feet in length.* Pennell refers to others captured 
on the Continent, which weighed 80, 97, and 145 pounds, the latter 
caught at Bregenty in 1862. 
There is no inherent improbability in these stories, since the Muskel- 
lunge often attains the weight of eighty pounds or more, as is attested by 
numerous witnesses. 
No records of colossal Pike are found in the annals of American 
anglers—perhaps because the large Pike are usually pronounced by uncriti- 
cal anglers to be Muskellunge. 
The western Pickerel, Esox vermiculatus, said to have been known to 
the Indians by the name Prccanau, has been known to attain the weight 
of twenty pounds,f but at the present day never exceeds seven or eight, 
and as usually seen, is not more than a foot inlength. The eastern brook 
Pickerel is likewise diminutive. 
In his census investigation of the Great Lakes, Mr. Kumlien obtained 
the following notes upon the abundance of the Pike and Muskellunge: 
«¢On the western shore of Lake Michigan, Pike appear to be resident 
in those portions of the lake off Racine, and are very rarely taken in gill- 
nets. At the west end of Lake Erie, individuals are at rare intervals taken 
* A fish seven feet long would weigh (28 X 8) = 224 pounds. t Mississippi. 
