Fishes. 1081 



bots. Whilst I was considering these last, the scullion suddenly arrived with a plate- 

 ful of the intestines of fowls, which he threw at once to the eel pouts. I certainly 

 waited a few minutes, and did not see them begin their meal; but on visiting them 

 the next morning, all thus bestowed had disappeared. They grow in Switzerland to 

 the weight of six or seven pounds, and are deservedly in the highest estimation. At 

 Yarmouth, the term ' eel pout ' is given to an entirely different species, the Blennius 

 viviparus, (see Mr. Paget's Sketch)." — p. 133. 



" The Pike (Esox lucius). This fish is in Norfolk as principal an object of pursuit 

 to the fisherman as the trout is in many counties. If a fishing party on the broads is 

 talked of, pike are of course to be attacked. The fishermen who hire waters as a live- 

 lihood, mainly rely on the capture of this fish for their returns. Boys may be seen in 

 the spawning season, busily employed in the mischievous process of snaring all the 

 little worthless Jack they can find. The heron, in Norfolk, gets half his subsistence 

 from the fry of this fish ; those which were taken by falcons at Didlington, had always 

 small pike in their maws. Yet, in spite of all these enemies, the 'mighty luce or pike' 

 still flourishes — like Burns' John Barleycorn, the more you persecute him the more he 

 thrives. Mr. Yarrell, in his ' British Fishes,' has given some strong instances of suc- 

 cess in Norfolk, and such are by no means rare ; the memory of any practised fisher- 

 man recals many such days of sport. 



" On Kanworth broad, upwards of ninety pike, and many of them of large size, 

 have been taken in a day by trimmers, by two amateur fishermen in the same boat. 

 On Sutton broad, a very circumscribed and shallow pool, in March 1832, with fifty 

 trimmers, twenty-six pike and a very large perch were taken. Four of these fish were 

 from thirty-three to thirty-six inches in length, and many others weighed from seven 

 to ten pounds. 



" The largest fish, to the size of which I can positively speak, was taken a few 

 years back from a small pool near South Walsham broad, and weighed thirty-six 

 pounds. Four fish, weighing collectively one hundred pounds, have been netted in a 

 day upon the same broad ; yet some of the old fishermen protest that the pike of the 

 present day are not to be compared to the giants of the olden time, and they refer to 

 a period early in the present century, when for the last time the sea made a serious 

 inroad over the marum banks, as the season when these Titans perished. As far as 

 observation goes, there is a point in size to which a pike grows rapidly — good feed and 

 water suitable being provided for him — and after that his growth is comparatively 

 slow. 



"The largest-framed fish I ever beheld, was found in the reeds on the verge of a 

 broad in the summer of 1822: the water had receded so as to make him prisoner in a 

 place so shallow as not to cover his back fin. Emaciated as he was — for his head was 

 far the largest part about him — he weighed twenty-one pounds, and would in very 

 high condition, I am certain, have reached thirty. five. He was accurately measured 

 before being turned loose, and was forty-three inches in length. 



* ***** * 



" In Norfolk, the general mode of taking pike is by net, or by a trimmer. These 

 trimmers are not with us the neat painted corks which are sold in tackle-shops, but a 

 bundle of that species of rush, here provincially called ' boulders,' of which chair-bot- 

 toms are made ; a mass of these, about fourteen inches in length, and the thickness of 

 a man's arm, is bound together tightly at each extremity, about eight yards of souud 

 string are added in the centre, and with a baited hook, the apparatus is complete. In 



iii 3 x 



