Longewe 
tye 
272 Pe ae ee Clafs IV. 
birds do at the fight of the hawk or owl. When 
the pike lies dormant near the furface (as is fre~ 
quently the cafe) the leffer fifh are often obferved 
to fwim around it in vaft numbers, and in great an- 
xiety. Pike are often haltered in a noofe, and taken 
while they lie thus afleep, as they are often found in 
the ditches near the Tames in the month of May., 
In the fhallow water of the Lincolufhire fens they 
are frequently taken in a manner peculiar, we be- 
Jieve, to that county, and the ifle of Ceylon *. The 
fifhermen makes ufe of what is called a crown-net, 
which is no more than a hemifpherical bafket, open 
at top and bottom. He ftands at the end of one of 
the little fen-boats, and frequently puts his bafket 
down to the bottom of the water, then poking a 
ftick into it, difcovers whether he has any booty by 
the ftriking of the fifh; and vaft numbers of pike 
are taken in this manner. 
The longevity of this fifh is very remarkable, if 
we may credit the accounts given of it. Rzaczyn- 
fei** tells us of one that was ninety years old; but 
Gefner+ relates, that inthe year 1497, a pike was 
taken near Hailbrun, in Suabia, with a brazen ring 
afhxed to it, on which were thofe words in Greek 
characters: I am the fifh which was firft of all put 
into this lake by the bands of the governor of the uni- 
verfe, FREDERICK the Second, the 5th of October, 
1230:” fo that the former muft have been an in~ 
fant to this Methu/alem of a fith. 
* Kunox’s Hift. Ceylon, 28. 
** Hift. Nat. Polonia, 1526 
Leones pifcium, 316, where a print of the ring is given. 
Pikes 
