hich I forbear to name) may be fish of another kind, and
differ, as we know a _Herring_ and a _Pilcher_ do; but must by me be
left to the disquisitions of men of more leisure and of greater
abilities, then 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 black
or blackish spots, which gives them such an addition of natural
beautie, as I (that yet am no enemy to it) 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 and proceed to some
Observations of the _Pike_.

CHAP. VII.

_Pisc._ It is not to be doubted but that the _Luce_, or _Pikrell_, or
_Pike_ breeds by Spawning; and yet _Gesner_ sayes, that some of them
breed, where none ever was, out of a weed called _Pikrell-weed_, and
other glutinous matter, which with the help of the Suns heat proves in
some particular ponds (apted by nature for it) to become _Pikes_.

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 that
his life is not usually above fortie 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 the Pond by _Frederick_ the second,
more then two hundred years before he was last taken, as the
Inscription of 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 then goodness;
the smaller or middle siz'd _Pikes_ being by the most and choicest
palates observed to be the best meat; but contrary, the _Eele_ 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 his owne kind, which has made him by some Writers to bee 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 l