THE JACK. 187 



him now. The suggestion that the sacred Oxyrhynchus 

 (sharp nose) of the Nile was the true ancestor of our 

 pike will hardly wash, as Elian's oxyrhynchus " came up 

 from the sea/' and his sharp-pointed beak hardly answers 

 to the " broad, patulous, anserine mouth-piece " of the 

 Esoxpf modern anglers. Nor can we identify our Esox 

 with Pliny's Esox, which attained the weight of 1000 lbs., 

 unless there has been a sad deterioration of race during 

 the degenerating ages. Indeed, as a learned ichthyolo- 

 gist informs us, the first appearance of our Esox, in 

 either poetry or prose, cannot be put before the fourth 

 century of the Christian era, when the Latin poet Ausonius 

 sings of him as, — 



" The wary Luce, 'midst wrack and rushes hid, 

 The scourge and terror of the scaly brood," 



which is a free translation of 



" JLucius obscuras ulva limoque lacunas 

 Obsidet," 



a passage which, by the way, I notice is very incorrectly 

 quoted by Dr. Badham, Mr. Pennell, and other writers on 

 fish and fishing. He is now a very widely distributed 

 fish in British waters, but we have only one species. 



It has been gravely held by some that the word Lucius 

 — " luce " — is from the Latin luceo, to " shine," and 

 applied to our Esox because of certain phosphorescent pro- 

 perties he displays in the dark. But unfortunately for 

 this etymology he has no phosphorescent properties ; and 

 we can hardly suppose he was called the " shiner" on the 

 lucus a non lucendo principle, because he does not shine. 

 There can be little or no doubt about Lucius being merely 



