152 PIKE AND OTHER 'COARSE FISH. 



In the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the head of a pike is 

 stated to have been preserved, the owner of which turned the 

 scale at 70 lbs.; but the curator of the museum informs me 

 that this head is not now in the collection. 



The capture of a pike weighing 96 lbs. in Broadwood Lake, 

 near Killaloe, is chronicled by the author of the 'Angler in 

 Ireland,' by Mr. Robert Blakey, and by 'Ephemera' in his 

 'Notes to Walton's Angler' (1853). Each of these authors, 

 however, introducing just sufficient variations in the weight ol 

 the fish and other accessories as to impart an agreeable air of 

 novelty to his account The first historian of this Irish pike 

 was, so far as I can make out, ' Piscator,' author of the ' Practical 

 Angler,' who gives the additional particulars that ' when carried 

 across the oar by two gentlemen, neither of whom was short, 

 the head and tail actually touched the ground,' so that the 

 length of this pike (putting the men only at 5 ft 6 in., and 

 allowing nothing for the curve of the fish over the oar) must 

 have been close upon 10 feet But then perhaps they were 

 Irish feet? 



A pike of 90 lbs., however, was stated a year or two ago in 

 the Field to have been actually killed at that time in the 

 Shannon ; and Patrick Hearns of Ballina read in a local 

 paper that ' a monster pike has been found dead on one of the 

 Ballina Lafces. He was driven ashore by the great storm ; he 

 was above 60 lbs.' 



From Lake Constance we read of one of 130 lbs. : — ■ 



It may interest some of your readers that on May 22 last a 

 monster pike of 60 kilos (about 130 lbs. English) was caught by 

 net in the Lake of Constance by two fishermen named Adler- 

 roeister and Obermann. The fish was bought for 100 fr. by Mr. 

 ^tenermeister, of the Wienerhof Hotel, at Kard, and when cut 

 open a full-grown wild duck was found inside. My information 

 is from the daily St Gall paper of May 26, which I enclose.— 

 John Knechtly, 6 Carey Lane, London, E.C., June 4, 1877. 



In crossing the ocean we should naturally expect something 

 ' big ! from our Transatlantic kinsmen, and accordingly in the 



