NOTE. If it is desired to give a trial to the hooks, tackle, &c., recommended in the following pages, it is advised that no change of any kind should be introduced, and that in case of purchases or orders from tackle-shops an exact compliance with the instructions should be insisted upon. Experimental variations and improvements, so-called, are very apt to produce results the opposite of improved. This is specially true as regards bends of hooks, and the proportions of spinning flights. 65 FISHING. PIKE AND OTHER COARSE FISH. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. I FEEL that some apology is due to what are, after all, perhaps, the great body of fishermen, for the second part of the title of the present volume. The term 'coarse fish' has been adopted because it seems to be that most generally used and understood, and, therefore, best calculated to convey readily a correct idea of the contents of this essay. Even whilst employing the expression, however, I must record my protest against it. What is there coarse, for example, about the perch of gorgeous scaling, armed cap-à-pie like a paladin of old, and glowing with half the colours of the rainbow? Or the 'arrowy dace,' almost as mettlesome, and perhaps even more graceful and glittering than the aristocratic trout? A cold, sweet, silver life, wrapped in round waves, ... Again, when the term 'coarse fishing' is used, have those who employ it ever watched, with a sympathetic eye, the consummate skill and dexterity which a 'cockney' roach-fisher will display in pursuit of his game, and the gossamer fineness of every bit of the tackle he uses? Depend upon it, in the luring and landing of a two-pound roach on a single-hair line, there is II. B called for and shown a 'fine art,' as my friend, Mr. Senior, expresses it, which need not shrink from contrast with that demanded by any branch of angling whatever. 'Coarse fishing' is as great a misnomer as coarse fish; every kind of fishing is capable of being brought to perfection, and of being carried out scientifically as well as clumsily and ignorantly; and I hope I need not appeal to the tenor of all my former writings on the subject to assure my readers that I am a strenuous advocate for the use of the very finest tackle compatible with safety, not in fly-fishing only, but in every branch and every department of the art of angling. Indeed I recall with, I hope, some pardonable pride and pleasure that after the publication of my earlier essays, commentators, more kindly and indulgent, doubtless, than critical, were flattering enough to give me the sobriquet of the Apostle of Fine Fishing.' I shall not apologise, therefore, for the fact that in the following pages considerable space and attention are accorded to matters, as some might consider them, of almost trivial detail. The whole is made up of its parts,' however; and without careful attention to details neither neatness nor strength can be attained. The difference in killing power between one bend of hook and another, slightly varied, is not less than 100 per cent. 3 THE PIKE (Esox lucius). The wary Luce, midst wrack and rushes hid, The scourge and terror of the scaly brood.-AUSONIUS. Although there is but one species of pike (i.e. Esox lucius) found in the waters of Great Britain, and recognised in those of Europe, the rivers and lakes of North America produce a great many varieties, all possessing more or less distinct characteristics. Into the details of these it is not necessary to enter; but the following is a list of the principal species which, according to American writers, appear to have been clearly demonstrated to be distinct :-The Mascalonge (Esox estor) and the northern Pickerel (Esox lucioides), both inhabitants of the great lakes; the common Pickerel (Esox reticulatus), indigenous to all the ponds and streams of the northern and midland States; the Long Island Pickerel (Esox fasciatus), probably confined to that locality; the white Pickerel (Esox vittatus), the black Pickerel (Esox niger), and Esox phaleratus, all three inhabiting the Pennsylvanian and Western waters. Of the species above enumerated the first two are the types, all the others following, more or less closely, the same formation as to comparative length of snout, formation of the lower jaw, dental system, gill-covers, &c. As regards the European pike, it seems probable that there may be varieties yet to be discovered, as Dr. Genzik assures me that he has found some specimens which had teeth like the fangs of the viper-capable of being erected or depressed at pleasure,—a circumstance all the more remarkable as the jaws also of the fish are furnished with extra bones to increase the size of the gape, very similar to the corresponding bones in the viper conformation. We have, however, in the British Islands and on the Continent, only one recognised species;' which species, according to the author of 'British Fishes' and some other writers, has probably been acclimatised.' Personally I am rather disposed to believe it to be indigenous; but I willingly leave the point to the researches of the curious in such matters, and to the students, if such there be, of mediaval ichthyology. If the fish was really an importation, it could not, at any rate, have been a very recent one, as pike are mentioned in the Act of the 6th year of Richard II., 1382, and also by Chaucer in the well-known lines: Full many a fair partrich hadde he in mewe, And many a breme, and many a Luce in stewe.. One of the names by which the pike was formerly known, now obsolete, or at any rate used only as a diminutive, is 'pickerel;' which again, when arrived at a certain, or rather uncertain age of discretion, becomes a 'jack;' to be finally inducted into the full dignity of pikehood. The term 'pike' has been supposed to take its origin in the Saxon word piik, sharppointed, in reference to the peculiar form of the pike's head, thus, by the way, furnishing an argument in favour of the indigenous character of the fish, in contradiction to Yarrell's 'importation' theory. Skinner and Tooke would derive it from the French word pique, on account, they say, of the sharpness of its snout. It is the brochet or brocheton, lance or lanceron, and becquet of France, the gädda of the Swede, and the gedde or gei of Denmark, which latter term is nearly identical with the lowland Scotch gedd. Ingenious derivations of all these names have been discovered by philologists, but they are, for the most part, somewhat fanciful. The luccio or luzzo of the Italians, and the term luce or lucie (white lucie' of Shakespeare and of heraldry) are evidently derived from the old classical name of the fish, lucius. Here again, however, we |