298 PKOSE HALIEUTICS. 



names are of easier explanation than any of the abore : 

 brochetj or brocheton, is evidently derived from the spit- 

 like shape of the body ; and lance^ lanceron, from the 

 speed with which these fish hurl themselves upon prey 

 or against an enemy ; lastly^ becquet is a sobriquet sug- 

 gested no doubt by the flattened form (more like a duck's 

 biU than a fish's mouth) of the muzzle. 



Although strangers to her waters, some pike are, it 

 seems, no strangers to the language of ancient Greece ; 

 and one of the race, in leaving a most extraordinary re- 

 cord of himself, has adopted this learned language for the 

 vehicle of communication. In the year 1497 a giant 

 ' Jack-kiUer' was captured in the vicinity of Mannheim, 

 with the following announcement in Greek appended to 

 his muzzle : ' I am the first fish that was put into this 

 pond by the hands of the Emperor Frederic the Second, 

 on this third day of October, 1263.' The age of the in- 

 formant, therefore, if his lips spoke truth (and the un- 

 precedented dimensions of the body left little doubt on 

 that point), was more than two hundred and thirty-five 

 years. Already he had been the siirvivor of many im- 

 portant changes in the political and social world around, 

 and would have swum out perhaps as many more had 

 the captors been as solicitous to preserve his life, as they 

 were to take his portrait. This, on the demise of the 

 original, was hung up in the castle of Lantern, and the 

 enormous carcase (which when entire weighed three 

 himdred and fifty pounds, and measured nineteen feet) 

 was sent to the museum of Mannheim, where, deprived of 

 its flesh, and articulated de novo, it hung, and haply yet 

 hangs,' a light exsiccated skeleton, which a child might 

 move. It has been long siuce recorded of great men 

 that they lose much of their weight corporeal after death : 

 'expende Hannibalem,' — 



That urn of ashes to the balance bear, 

 And mark how much of Hannibal be there ; 



