the oak by a retort, mixed with turpentine and hivehoney, and anoint your bait therewith, and it will doubtless draw the fish to it."

The other is this: "Vulnera Hederæ grandissimæ inflicta sudant Balsamun oleo gelato, albicantique persimile, odoris verò longè suavissimi.”

'Tis supremely sweet to any fish, and yet assafœtida may do the like.

But in these things 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 Pilcher 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 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.

THE FOURTH DAY.

CHAP. VIII. Observations of the LUCE or PIKE, with Directions how to fish for him.

PISCATOR.

THE mighty Luce or Pike is taken to be the Ty

rant, 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 are 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 it is observed

that the old or very great Pikes have in them more of state than goodness; the smaller or middle-sized 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, 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."

But if these relations be disbelieved, it is too evident

to be doubted that a Pike will devour a fish of his own kind, that shall be bigger than his belly or throat will receive, and swallow a part of him, and let the other part remain in his mouth till the swallowed part be digested, and then swallow that other part that was in his mouth, and so put it over by degrees; which is not unlike the ox, and some other beasts, taking their meat, not out of their mouth immediately into their belly, but first into some place betwixt, and then chew it, or digest it by degrees after, which is called chewing the cud. And doubtless Pikes will bite when they are not hungry, but, as some think, even for very anger, when a tempting bait comes near to them.

And it is observed that the Pike will eat venomous things, as some kind of frogs are, and yet live without being harmed by them; for, as some say, he has in him a natural balsam, or antidote against all poison: and he has a strange heat, that, though it appear to us to be cold, can yet digest, or put over, any fish-flesh, by degrees, without being sick. And others observe, that he never eats the venomous frog till he have first killed her, and then —as ducks are observed to do to frogs in spawning-time, at which time some frogs are observed to be venomous

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so thoroughly washed her, by tumbling her up and down in the water, that he may devour her without danger. And Gesner affirms that a Polonian gentleman did faithfully assure him he had seen two young geese at one time in the belly of a Pike. And doubtless a Pike, in his height of hunger, will bite at and devour a dog that swims in a pond; and there have been examples of it, or the