PIKE. 29 
It is not often that we find the father of 
fishers either recording that which he himself 
has not seen, or facts; but here, for once, he is 
found tripping—as, indeed, he otherwheres admits, 
when he throws the proof of the curious “ fact” 
upon the learned Gesner. And still there is a 
half-truth in the statement, as it is now known 
that the pike sheds its spawn upon pickerel- 
weed, to which it adheres. The number of eggs 
which a pike produces is enormous, and in three 
individuals Buckland found respectively 43,000, 
224,640, and 292,300 eggs in fish weighing 35 lbs., 
24 lbs., and 28 lbs. respectively. The first of these 
offered my reasons to prove contrary; asserting that pickerels 
have been fished out of ponds where that weed (for aught I 
know) never grew since the nonage of time, nor pickerel never 
known to have shed their spawn there. This I propounded 
from a rational conjecture of the Heronshaw, who, to commode 
herself with the fry of fish, because in a great measure part of 
her maintenance, probably might lap some spawn about her 
legs, in regard to adhering to the segs and bullrushes, near the 
shallows, where the fish shed their spawn, as myself and others, 
without curiosity, have observed. And this slimy substance 
adhering to her legs, etc., and she mounting the air for another 
station, in all probability mounts with her. Where note, the 
next pond she haply arrives at, possibly she may leave the 
spawn behind her; which my Compleat Angler no longer 
deliberated, but drops his argument, and leaves Gesner to 
defend it; so huffed away, which rendered him rather a formal 
opinionist than a reformed and practical artist, because to 
celebrate such antiquated records whereby to maintain such an 
improbable assertion.” 
