356 
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare s Time. 
Yarrell says that this fish was so rare in the reign of 
Henry VIII., that a large one sold for double the 
price of a house-lamb in February, and a pickerel, or 
small pike, for more than a fat capon. He does not give 
his authority for these instances, but the numerous in¬ 
structions for serving and carving the pike which appear 
in books long before this period, make it probable that it 
was plentiful, at least in certain districts. Leland speaks 
of good pikes in the Welsh lakes, and so far back as the 
time of Edward III. Chaucer writes :— 
“ Full many a fair partricli hackle he in mewe, 
And many a breme and many a luce in stewe.” 
(.Prologue to Canterbury Tales.) 
The particular fish referred to by Yarrell may have been 
of unusual size. 
Gesner and other learned authorities endeavour to 
account for the sudden, and even in our own day mys¬ 
terious, appearance of the pike in ponds far from other 
water, by the theory that they were produced by the 
heat of the sun from a weed called, in consequence,, 
pickerel-weed. Izaak Walton repeats this theory, with 
the remark:— 
“ Doubtless divers pikes are bred after this manner, or are brought 
into some ponds some such other ways as is past man’s finding out; of 
which we have daily testimonies.” (Part 1, ch. viii.) 
In his description of Lincolnshire, Fuller writes:— 
“ Pikes are found plentifully in this shire, being the fresh-water 
wolves, and therefore an old pond pike is a dish of more state than 
profit to the owner, seeing a pike’s belly is a little fish-pond, where 
lesser of all sorts have been contained. Sir Francis Bacon alloweth it 
(though tyrants generally he short lived) the surviver of all fresh¬ 
water fish, attaining to forty years. .. The flesh thereof must needs he 
fine and wholsome, if it he true what is affirmed, that in some sort it 
cheweth the cud ; and yet the less and middle size pikes are preferred 
for sweetnesse before those that are greater.” ( Worthies , vol. ii. p. 1.) 
