328 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY. 



been so often asserted by the manual-making angler, that it is odd 



that these industrious gentlemen have never taken a walk to the 



British Museum and consulted the most ancient of all manuals on 



the fisherman's art, "The Boke of St. Albans," by Dame Juliana 



Berners. This famous work was published by Wynkyn de Worde 



in 1496, and the pike was evidently then looked upon as a native. 



" The Pyke," she says, "is a good fysshe, but, for he devoureth so 



many as well of his own kynde as of others, I love him the lesse. For 



to take hym ye shall doe thus," &c. A hundred years before this 



the pike is mentioned by Chaucer as a common and highly-valued 



fish ; but as he calls him by the name Luce, which, so far as I 



know, is not now used in any part of these islands, and was, 



perhaps, nearly obsolete in Shakespeare's day, the passage has 



doubtless escaped the eye of the manual writer. In speaking of the 



Frankelyn in the " Canterbury Tales," the poet tells us that 



" Full many a fat partrich had he in mewe, 

 And many a brem and many a luce in stewe." 



The pike Is the salmon of sportsmen who want means or leisure 

 to hire fishings in Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, or rivers in 

 Norway. He is not nearly so good to eat as any one of the 

 Salmonidae, though Isaac Walton maintains that a pike baked with 

 a pudding in his belly is a dish for a king ; nor does he show such 

 sport as the salmon when he is hooked. Indeed, he often hangs 

 on the line like a water-logged piece of tree trunk, but this is 

 probably because we set about to catch him with a complication 

 of great hooks enough to paralyze the energies of a shark. On 

 the other hand, he has none of the caprice of the salmon ; where he 

 lives he abounds, and an hour's journey by train from London will 

 land the fisherman in good pike waters. 



