incorporated a kind of smell that was irresistibly attractive, enough to force any fish within the smell of them to bite. This I heard not long since from a friend, but have not tried it; yet I grant it probable, and refer my reader to Sir Francis Bacon's Natural History, where he proves fishes may hear, and, doubtless, can more probably smell: and I am certain Gesner says, the Otter can smell in the water; and I know not but that fish may do so too. 'Tis left for a lover of angling, or any that desires to improve that art, to try this conclusion.

I shall also impart two other experiments, (but not tried by myself,) which I will deliver in the same words that they were given me, by an excellent angler and a very friend, in writing: he told me the latter was too good to be told, but in a learned language, lest it should be made

common.

"Take the stinking oil drawn out of polypody of the oak by a retort, mixed with turpentine and hive-honey, and anoint your bait therewith, and it will doubtless draw the fish to it."

The other is this "Vulnera hederæ grandissimæ inflicta sudant balsamum oleo gelato, albicantique persimile, odoris verò longè suavissimi."

""Tis supremely sweet to any fish, and yet assa fœtida may do the like." i

(1) There is extant, though I have never been able to get a sight of it, a book entitled, the Secrets of Angling, by J. D.; at the end of which is the following mystical recipe of "R. R." who possibly may be the "R. Roe" mentioned in the Preface. [to Walton.]

* Ivy

To bliss thy bait, and make the fish to bite,
Lo! here's a means, if thou canst hit it right:
Take gum of life, well beat and laid to soak

In oil well drawn from that which kills the oak.
Fish where thou wilt, thou shalt have sport thy fill;
When others fail, thou shalt be sure to kill.

The ingenious author of the Angler's Sure Guide, published in 8vo. 1706; in the Preface, and elsewhere, ascribes this book to "that great practitioner, master and patron of angling, Dr. Donne." But I doubt as much, whether he was

But in these I have no great faith; yet grant it probable; and have had from some chemical men, (namely, from Sir George Hastings and others,) an affirmation of them to be very advantageous. But no more of these: especially not in this place.'

I might here, before I take my leave of the Salmon, tell you, that there is more than one sort of them, as namely, a Tecon, and another called in some places a Samlet, or by some a Skegger; (but these, and others which I forbear to name, may be fish of another kind, and differ as we know a Herring and a Pilchard do,) which, I think are as different as the rivers in which they breed, and must, by me, be left to the disquisitions of men of more leisure, and of greater abilities than I profess myself to have.

And lastly, I am to borrow so much of your promised patience as to tell you, that the Trout, or Salmon, being in season, have, at their first taking out of the water, (which continues during life) their bodies adorned, the one with such red spots, and the other with such black or blackish spots, as give them such an addition of natural beauty, as I think was never given to any woman by the

an angler, as I do his being the author of the above book; neither of which circumstances would, I think, have been omitted by Walton, had the several facts been true.

(1) The following intelligence appeared in one of the London papers, 21st June, 1788, and should operate as a general caution against using, in the com. position of baits, any ingredient prejudicial to the human constitution. "Newcastle, June 16. Last week, in Lancashire, two young men having caught a large quantity of Trout by mixing the water in a small brook with lime, ate heartily of the Trout at dinner the next day; they were seized, at midnight, with violent pains in the intestines; and though medical assistance was immediately procured, they expired before noon, in the greatest agonies."

(2) There is a fish, in many rivers, of the Salmon kind, which, though very small, is thought by some curious persons to be of the same species; and this, I take it, is the fish known by the different names of Salmon-Pink, Shedders, Skeggers, Last-springs, and Gravel Last-Springs. But there is another small fish very much resembling these in shape and colour, called the Gravel LastSpring, found only in the river Wye and Severn; which is, undoubtedly, a distinct species: These spawn about the beginning of September: and in the Wye I have taken them with an ant-fly as fast as I could throw. Perhaps this is what Walton calls the Tecon.

artificial paint or patches in which they so much pride themselves in this age. And so I shall leave them both; and proceed to some observations on the Pike.

CHAP. VIII.

Observations on the LUCE or PIKE, with Directions how to fish for him.

Piscator. THE mighty Luce or Pike is taken to be the tyrant, as the Salmon is the king of the fresh waters. "Tis not to be doubted, but that they are bred, some by generation, and some not; as namely, of a weed called pickerel-weed, unless learned Gesner be much mistaken, for he says, this weed and other glutinous matter, with the help of the sun's heat, in some particular months, and some ponds apted for it by nature, do become Pikes. But, 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.

Sir Francis Bacon, in his History of Life and Death, observes the Pike to be the longest lived of any fresh-water fish; and yet he computes it to be not usually above forty years; and others think it to be not above ten years: and yet Gesner mentions a Pike taken in Swedeland, in the year 1449, with a ring about his neck, declaring he was put into that pond by Frederick the Second, more than two hundred years before he was last taken, as by the inscription in that ring, being Greek, was interpreted by the then Bishop of Worms. But of this no more; but that

(1) The story is told by Hakewill, who in his " Apologie of the power and providence of God," fol. Oxf. 1635. P. I. p. 145, says, "I will close up this Chap. ter with a relation of Gesner's, in his Epistle to the Emperor Ferdinand, prefixed before his booke De Piscibus, touching the long life of a Pike which was cast into a pond or poole near Hailebrune in Swevia, with this inscription ingraven upon a collar of brass fastened about his necke. Ego sum ille piscis huic stagnó omnium primus impositus per mundi rectoris Frederici Secundi manus, 5 Octobris, anno 1230. I am that fish which was first of all cast into this poole

it is observed, that the old or very great Pikes have in them more of state than goodness; the smaller or middlesized Pikes being, by the most and choicest palates, observed to be the best meat: and, contrary, the Eel is observed to be the better for age and bigness.

All Pikes that live long prove chargeable to their keepers, because their life is maintained by the death of so many other fish, even those of their own kind; which has made him by some writers to be called the tyrant of the rivers, or the fresh-water wolf, by reason of his bold, greedy, devouring disposition; which is so keen, that, as Gesner relates, A man going to a pond, where it seems a Pike had devoured all the fish, to water his mule, had a Pike bit his mule by the lips; to which the Pike hung so fast, that the mule drew him out of the water; and by that accident, the owner of the mule angled out the Pike. And the same Gesner observes, that a maid in Poland had a Pike bit her by the foot, as she was washing clothes in a pond. And I have heard the like of a woman in Killingworth pond, not far from Coventry. But I have been assured by my friend Mr. Seagrave, of whom I spake to you formerly, that keeps tame Otters, that he hath known a Pike, in extreme hunger, fight with one of his Otters for a Carp that the Otter had caught, and was then bringing out of the water. I have told you who relate these things; and tell you they are persons of credit; and shall conclude this observation, by telling you, what a wise man has observed, "It is a hard thing to persuade the belly, because it has no ears.'

by the hand of Fredericke the Second, governour of the world, the fift of October, in the year 1230. He was again taken up in the yeare 1497, and by the inscription it appeared he had then lived there 267 yeares."

(1) Bowlker, in his Art of Angling before cited, page 9, gives the following instance of the exceeding voracity of this fish: "My father catched a Pike in Barn-Meer, (a large standing-water in Cheshire) was an ell long, and weighed thirty-five pounds, which he brought to the lord Cholmondeley: his lordship ordered it to be turned into a canal in the garden, wherein were abundance of

But if these relations be disbelieved, it is too evident to be doubted, that a Pike will devour a fish of his own kind

several sorts of fish. About twelve months after, his lordship draw'd the canal, and found that this overgrown Pike had devoured all the fish, except one large Carp, that weighed between nine and ten pounds, and that was bitten in several places. The Pike was then put into the canal again, together with abundance of fish with him to feed upon, all which he devoured in less than a year's time; and was observed by the gardener and workmen there, to take the ducks, and other water-fowl, under water. Whereupon they shot magpies and crows, and threw them into the canal, which the Pike took before their eyes of this they acquainted their lord; who, thereupon, ordered the slaughterman to fling in calves-bellies, chickens-guts, and such like garbage to him, to prey upon but being soon after neglected, he died, as supposed, for want of food.

The following relation was inserted as an article of news in one of the London Papers, 2d Jan. 1765.

Extract of a Letter from Littleport, Dec. 17.

"About ten days ago, a large Pike was caught in the river Ouse, which weighed upwards of 28 pounds, and was sold to a gentleman in the neighbourhood for a guinea. As the cook-maid was gutting the fish, she found, to her great astonishment, a watch with a black ribbon and two steel seals annexed, in the body of the Pike; the gentleman's butler, upon opening the watch, found the maker's name, Thomas Cranefield, Burnham, Norfolk. Upon a strict enquiry, it appears, that the said watch was sold to a gentleman's servant, who was unfortunately drowned about six weeks ago, in his way to Cambridge, between this place and South-Ferry. The watch is still in the possession of Mr. John Roberts, at the Cross-Keys in Littleport, for the inspection of the public."

And this in the same paper, the 25th of the same month and year. "On Tuesday last, at Lillishall lime-works, near Newport, a pool about nine yards deep, which has not been fished for ages, was let off by means of a level brought up to drain the works, when an enormous Pike was found: he was drawn out by a rope fastened round his head and gills, amidst hundreds of spectators, in which service a great many men were employed: he weighed upwards of 170 pounds, and is thought to be the largest ever seen. Some time ago, the clerk of the parish was trolling in the above pool, when bis bait was seized by this furious creature, which by a sudden jerk pulled him in, and doubtless would have devoured him also, had he not, by wonderful agility and dexterous swimming, escaped the dreadful jaws of this voracious animal."

In Dr. Plot's History of Staffordshire, 246, are sundry relations of Pike of great magnitude; one in particular, caught in the Thame, an ell and two inches long.

The following story, containing further evidence of the voracity of this fish, with the addition of a pleasant circumstance, I met with in Fuller's Worthies, Lincolnshire, page 144.

"A cub Fox drinking out of the river Arnus in Italy, had his head seized on by a mighty Pike, so that neither could free themselves, but were ingrappled together. In this contest, a young man runs into the water, takes them out both alive, and carrieth them to the Duke of Florence, whose palace was hard by. The porter would not admit him, without a promise of sharing his full half in what the duke should give him; to which he (hopeless otherwise of entrance) condescended. The duke, highly affected with the rarity, was about giving him a good reward, which the other refused, desiring his highness would appoint one of his guard to give him an hundred lashes, that so his porter might have fifty according to his composition. And here my intelligence leaveth me, how much farther the jest was followed."