A Hundred Years Ago.

F. J. King King.

(To be continued.)

A bet was made some time since between Peter Mackenzie, Esq., of South Molton, and two brother shots, for twenty guineas aside, that the former gentleman did not kill one brace of partridges every day, Sundays excepted, for six weeks in succession from the first day of September last. This was determined on Saturday, October 12th, when Mr. M. having completed his engagement with apparent ease was consequently declared winner. This is looked upon by the amateurs as one of the first field exploits that has been performed for many years.

On the last Wednesday in November came on for decision a match which had excited much interest in the sporting world, and which amongst that community is denominated a Steeple-Race, the parties undertaking to surmount all obstructions and to pursue in their progress as straight a line as possible. The contest lay between Mr. Bullivant, of Sproxton; Mr. Day, of Wymondham; and Mr. Frisby, of Waltham; and was for a sweepstake of 100 guineas staked by each. They started from Womack’s Lodge at half-past twelve o’clock (the riders attired in handsome jockey dresses of orange, crimson and sky blue respectively, worn by the gentlemen in the order we have named them above) to run round Woodal Head and back again—a distance somewhat exceeding eight miles. They continued nearly together until they came within a mile and a half of the goal, when Mr. Bullivant, on his well-known horse Sentinel, took the lead, and appearances promised a fine race between him and Mr. Day; but unfortunately in passing through a hand-gate, owing partly to a slip, Mr. Day’s horse came in full contact with the gate-post; the rider was thrown with great violence and, as well as the horse, was much hurt. Nevertheless, Mr. Day remounted in an instant, and continued his course. Mr. Bullivant, however, during the interruption, made such progress as enabled him to win the race easily. The contest for a second place now became extremely severe between Mr. Day and Mr. Frisby: the last half mile was run neck and neck, and Mr. Day only beat his opponent by half a neck. The race was performed in 25 min. 35 sec.

Newmarket Jockies.Court of King’s Bench, December 6th. Irishv.Chifney.—The defendant in this case is the celebrated Newmarket jockey, the plaintiff is a bit-maker. When the cause was called on, Mr. Serjeant Best asked whether or not the defendant was ready tostart? and being answered in the affirmative, the learned Serjeantled offin a superior stile. The action was brought upon an agreement signed by the defendant for the payment of £15 which the plaintiff claimed as his due, for making a certain number of bits for racers which Mr. Chifney conceived were superior to any others, and the principle of which originated from his own fertile invention. The agreement was proved by a very respectable witness, and the defendant’s counsel endeavoured tocrossthe witness in order to prove that these bits had been exposed to sale contrary to the orders of Mr. Chifney; but on this point he failed, as the witness would not take thebit; and although he was finallyrubbed down, came in for thelegal platewithout any competitor. There was no kind of defence, and the jury found a verdict for the plaintiff for fifteen pounds.

Cricket Topics.

The first two days of the Cattle Show found the delegates of County Cricket busy at Lord’s, appointing on the Monday their umpires, and on the Tuesday their matches. In the absence of the Australian team, the programme has settled down very much on the usual lines of a domestic English cricket season. Mr. Lacey, the head Secretary of theM.C.C., announced that he was arranging fixtures for a West Indian team that is desirous of playing a series of matches in this country next summer. Mr. Lacey is reported to have said that as the West Indians were coming for the purpose of improving the standard of cricket in the West Indies, and not with the idea of making money, he trusted that he would receive the assistance of the counties in doing all that was possible to make the tour a success.

We have not seen an authentic list of the matches arranged, but we gather that our visitors will play a very mixed card, commencing at the Crystal Palace on June 11th, against a London County team of Mr. W. G. Grace’s.

Other fixtures in chronological order are against Essex, Middlesex, Warwickshire, Wiltshire, Hampshire, South Wales, Kent, M.C.C., Derbyshire, “All Scotland” at Edinburgh, and “All England” at that great centre of gate-money, Blackpool. Then against Yorkshire at Harrogate, and to finish with a burst of alliteration, Norfolk, Notts, and Northampton. This seems a fairly good all-round sample of English cricket, and our visitors ought to get a good look at the game as played in England; and we hope that they will achieve their purpose, insisted upon by Mr. Lacey, of improving the standard of the game in the West Indies.

In 1900, when a team visited us from the West Indies, the Marylebone Club did what they could to discourage our guests and to lower the standard of their play by a proclamation that none of the West Indian matches were to count in the first-class averages. We hope that this time Mr. Lacey will advise his Committee to join in the general note of encouragement by permitting at any rate some of their matches—for instance, those against Surrey, Yorkshire, and Kent, to rank as high as, say, Somersetv.Hants.

There is nothing very interesting about county cricket nowadays, not even in regard to the arrangement of championship matches.

It is worthy of notice that Northamptonshire, who only just wriggled into the first-class last season, have had to struggle hard to maintain their position there, and have only just succeeded in arranging sufficient matches to again qualify. This came through the agency of Notts, who have dropped their matches with Kent, and have taken on Northants instead. For a long time Notts and Kent have been regular antagonists, and it seems almost a pity that their matches should be dropped; but even the best friends amongst the counties sometimes drift apart for a year or so, as has been shown again this year in the coy conduct of Surrey, who again refuse to play with Somerset, the county which has done so much to encourage Surrey cricket, originally by consistently beating her, and then by paying her the compliment of adopting and developing her most promising young players.Aproposof Somerset, we read with regret that Mr. S. M. J. Woods has announced his intention of retiring from the captaincy of the eleven at the end of next season.

Certainly his twelve years of office are very noticeable. In 1894 Mr. Woods took over a team of mixed possibilities and impossibilities, and has kept the concern going up to to-day, with most attractive and varying vicissitudes, and probably “Great Heart,” as he has been styled by his friend Mr. C. B. Fry, is about the only man who could have so long stood the strain of so frequently facing fearful odds. Somerset have now fifteen years’ experience of first-class cricket and have done many brilliant things, but for the second year in succession, and despite the fact that the Australian matches brought them in a nice profit, the club is confronted with an adverse balance well over four hundred pounds. It would almost seem as if cricket, the national game, were a hybrid growth in Somerset, where the natives do not support the game very conspicuously either by play or pay.

The dates of the big matches at Lord’s are: Oxford and Cambridge, July 5th; Gentlemen and Players, July 9th; and Eton and Harrow, July 13th. It will be seen that these games follow one another as closely as possible, so it is to be hoped, for the sake of the Marylebone Club finances, that the weather for that fortnight may prove favourable. For many years the match between Oxford University and M.C.C. and Ground has been arranged at Lord’s as the match to immediately precede the Oxford and Cambridge match, and in order to give the Oxonians a day of rest before the stress and strain of the ’Varsity match, the game with the M.C.C. has been limited to two days’ play, and in an epoch of good wickets this has taken much of the interest out of the game. Common sense has at length prevailed in this matter, and now the Oxfordv.M.C.C. match has been moved forward to a week before the Oxford and Cambridge match, and the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday preceding the ’Varsity match are allotted to Middlesex against Essex at Lord’s.

It seems a pity that the Hastings Cricket Festival should die out, but such would appear to be the case, as no matches have up to now been arranged for it. We hear that the last three years have each proved disastrous financially, and the promoters probably consider that they will be justified in contenting themselves with the week of Sussex county cricket which has been allotted to them by the County Committee at the end of August, when Warwickshire and Essex are to be engaged.

Of benefit matches there are not so many as usual. According to custom, the Whit-Monday match at Lord’s, between Somerset and Middlesex, is given as a benefit to a deserving member of the ground staff of the M.C.C. V. A. Titchmarsh, at one time the mainstay of Herts, and nowadays one of the most reliable of umpires, takes his turn on June 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and we wish him a bumper.

The great match of the year at Old Trafford, is the August Bank Holiday battle with Yorkshire, and this is to be for the benefit of John Tyldesley, who cannot possibly get more from it than he richly deserves, both from his country and his county.

At the Oval, Walter Lees is to have a benefit, and he too deserves well at the hands of Surrey cricketers, and was probably very unlucky never to have actually taken part in a Test Match, after having so often last season been amongst those selected to play for England.

At Lord’s the programme is no more interesting than is usually the case at headquarters in the absence of an Australian team. Middlesex, of course, will play all their home matches there, and, apart from the three big-gate matches already referred to, there is nothing very attractive about the fixtures arranged for Lord’s. Yorkshire, Sussex, Derbyshire, Kent, and Notts play the M.C.C. and Ground, the latter county, as usual, playing the opening match at Lord’s, beginning on the first Wednesday in May. They are quite devoid of interest these three days’ matches between some generally moderate Marylebone amateurs, pulled through by the professional element, against a county team from which the most prominent members are for this unimportant occasion taking a rest.

We wonder if the management at Lord’s will one day be able to devise some better plan of disposing of their dates and their money. To our mind the game between Actors and Jockeys played last September might to advantage be moved forward into the season proper.

It has always been very difficult to gain any reliable information as to the personal profits made by members of Australian teams touring in this country. Our enterprising contemporary theDaily Mail, has endeavoured to shed some light upon the profits of the last tour, by the help of some evidence given in the bankruptcy proceedings of S. E. Gregory. According to Gregory’s evidence as reported, the members of the team were to share and share alike in the profits of the tour. That was tacitly agreed upon. All the members signed an agreement on board the steamerMajestic, between America and London, by which they bound themselves to keep order, to abstain from writing for the Press, and to observe minor conditions. There had as yet been no balance-sheet of the tour prepared, but it was anticipated that the gross proceeds would be about £800 a man. Out of that the players had to pay their travelling expenses to and from England, and while in England. The Melbourne Cricket Club advanced the necessary money to players, and had it deducted from each man’s share.

The players very seldom saw one another except on the cricket field or on the boat coming out. One of the team had told him he had about £50 still to come, which would mean about £500 net for the tour. With regard to his expenses in England, Gregory said: “I had to go very slow not to spend more than £150. That amount went in cab fares, theatres, return “shouts,” clothes, and cricket bats, although most of our bats were presented to us.”

These figures are in a way interesting, and we cannot understand how the Marylebone Club was able to lose so much money over their tour in Australia, when Australian visitors are able to carry away a profit of £800 per head amongst fourteen of them, besides enriching the coffers of our counties to a very considerable extent.

The English team in South Africa succeeded in winning their first match at Cape Town, against the Western Province XI., by an innings and 127 runs. Towards the total of 365 compiled by Mr. Warner’s team, the captain scored 56, Denton 78, Mr. Fane 60, and Relf 61 not out. For the Western Province Whitehead took six wickets for 160 runs, but Kotze, who made such an impression in this country with his extra fast deliveries, proved altogether unsuccessful.

The home team could only accomplish 26 and 142 in their two hands, Coggings with 20 and 43 being their most successful batsman; whilst of the English bowlers who were tried Haigh and Mr. J. N. Crawford have the best figures, getting five wickets each for 31 and 5 runs respectively.

Against the country districts at Worcester in Cape Colony the visitors won by an innings and 52 runs, and apparently the country districts batsmen cannot be of any high calibre, since in their first innings Mr. Hartley took nine wickets for 26 runs, and in their second Mr. Leveson-Gower had five for 14; Mr. Leveson-Gower also scored 82 runs, which constituted quite a successful first appearance for him in the team.

We note from South African Exchanges that Major R. M. Poore, of Hampshire fame, is again busy playing for his regiment, the 7th Hussars, at Potchefstroom. His scores of 44 not out, and 115, prove him to be in good form, so that he is likely to render a good account of himself when he runs up against the English bowlers; as he did against Lord Hawke’s team in 1896, when he took more than one century off the late George Lohmann and some very fair amateur bowlers.

Is Foxhunting Doomed?

The above question, though not a very cheerful one to mention near the commencement of the hunting season, is one which has nevertheless to be faced by all hunting men, with whom the answer must chiefly rest. The reply, as to most complex questions, must be both “yes” and “no.” Geographically and in the very nature of things, hunting is doomed in the ever-increasing black countries of mines and factories, of bricks and mortar, of railways and canals, and with the modern innovation of light railways even crossing our fields.

When even Salisbury Plain has become a military camp, who can say that Dartmoor and Exmoor will not in another generation re-echo the sound of bugle and trumpet instead of the horn of the hunter?

Still, where estates are large, the Master of Foxhounds, patient and realising the changed conditions of modern hunting and fox preserving, and the farmers long-suffering, as they will still be if properly treated, foxhunting may yet survive for another century at least.

What hunting men must realise and acknowledge is that, now that the feudal system is as extinct as the dodo, and scarcely one applicant for a vacant farm can be found where we used to have twenty, hunting can only be carried on through the goodwill of the occupier of the land which is ridden over, whether landowner or tenant farmer. In the good old times, before the disastrous season of 1879 and the extension of foreign competition, when farmers were rich and the “fields” were small and consisted chiefly of his own friends and neighbours, the farmer as depicted inPunchmight be the first to ignore the warning cry of “’ware wheat!” on his own farm, but now that times are permanently bad but few farmers can afford to hunt, and railway facilities—and now that modern Juggernaut the motor car (patronised even by masters of foxhounds who will probably soon adopt a motor-hound van)—bring strangers by the hundred who know not wheat from grass nor seeds from bare stubble, and care less, and spend nothing in the neighbourhood, no wonder the crushed farmer turns, and some even insist on their undoubted legal right of warning off the trespasser, and if necessary protecting their own propertyvi et armis(with a pitchfork). Hunting, formerly arising out of the absolute rights of the lord over his serf, continued through the mutual good feeling between landlord and tenant, but now that many landlords are absentees and scarcely know a single tenant by sight, they cannot expect to let their land while still retaining it for sporting purposes without compensating the tenant or recognising the sacrifices which he endures for sport. One who was “blooded” by that best of sportsmen, the late Sir Charles Slingsby, half a century ago, at the early age of six years, and has had a life-long experience of every phase of country life both as landowner and farmer, while equally keen on both hunting and shooting, can see a good deal of both sides of this question.

To begin at the top, though the Master of Foxhounds, especially nowadays, has of all men the most need of tact and the patience of Job, how many are there in possession of those estimable qualities?

Although James Pigg had his prototype, dear old Jorrocks must be regarded as somewhat of a caricature; but Lord Scamperdale and his bully, Jack Spraggon, were taken from real characters, and the race, I fear, is not now altogether extinct. I have known a master, an old country squire and no ignorant upstart, abuse as a vulpicide another poor crippled squire in his carriage before the whole field, with the not unnatural result that he who for fifty years had preserved foxes throughout his vast extent of coverts solely for the benefit of others, as he could never hunt himself, went home and ordered every fox on his estate to be killed for two years as an object lesson; thereby quite ruining one day in every week. One cannot approve of such wholesale punishing of the innocent with the guilty, but cannot wonder at it. The same master, before throwing off, abused publicly on his own doorstep at a meet another landowner from whose five-acre covert I had myself had the satisfaction of holloaing away no less than seven foxes while shooting the week before. Another Master of Foxhounds in my hearing slanged the best of sportsmen and a keen fox preserver because he himself in a fit of temper had drawn blank at a hard gallop two hundred acres of coverts from which, to my own knowledge, five foxes at least had been halloaed away. My own Master of Foxhounds, a real good sort and an intimate friend, once received me, until I laughed him out of it instead of taking offence myself, with unaccountable coolness at Peterborough Hound Show; though I think he might have guessed that the unpleasing present which he had that morning received of the pads of a litter of cubs was scarcely likely to be sent by a keen preserver of foxes for twenty years with the well-known postmark of his own parish. Obviously I myself was the most injured as well as insulted party. Still, happily, these cases are exceptions in an experience of some scores of masters in every part of England, and I may especially mention the courtesy shown to a stranger in days of old in the Croome and Blackmore Vale countries.

It is vain for a Master of Foxhounds, not himself a landowner, to state that foxes do no harm to game, to me who have counted eighteen nests, say one hundred brace of partridges, destroyed around a single field; not that one grudged it, but one likes sometimes to have one’s sacrifices a little appreciated. We feel well repaid for the hundreds of rabbits consumed in the summer if only one of the right sort is found in our coverts when needed, and the master cheerily shouts as he dashes past, “I knew we could always depend on you, old chap.” Again, masters and fields, especially non-subscribers from towns, do not recognise the difficulty of showing foxes when needed. A good fox is not like a hand-reared pheasant, a tame animal to come when whistled for, but a wild animal going far afield and lying out in turnips or taking refuge in the tops of pollard trees; coverts may have been lately shot, timber may have been felled, a strange dog may have hunted them; worst of all, a fox may have been chopped there, or a score of things happened of which the grumblers are ignorant. A reputed millionaire Master of Foxhounds in a grass country brought his oats, hay and straw from abroad, losing hundreds of pounds of goodwill from the aggrieved farmers for every ten pounds saved. And now for the average man, who hunts to ride, or often only to sport pink at dinners or balls, and actually seems to believe himself that he confers a favour on the poor farmer by ruining his crops and breaking his fences and leaving his gates open, and whom he will sometimes curse incontinently if he is the least slow in throwing open his gates to the trespasser, to whom in rare cases he may throw a copper as to a beggar, contemptuously. Such an one buys everything at a distance, not only clothes, boots, saddlery and horse clothing, and stable utensils, but hay, corn and straw, while he buys his horses from the London dealer and not from the farmer. The chief reason of this is not only thoughtlessness but the fact that too many masters are morally the slaves of the servants who rob them, and who, with an ignorant, timid, or indifferent master, will often represent local goods as inferior, and even make them so to secure the commissions, as the cook does with eggs, poultry, meat, &c. It always puzzles me, too, why hunting men will pay two to three hundred guineas to a London dealer for a pig in a poke rather than buy a hunter from the breeder and trainer whose animal they can see day after day doing an excellent performance with hounds, and of which they may have any reasonable practical trial in the field before buying. The grooms can make the purchase a failure if they do not get substantial “regulars,” and their master is a duffer, and many men explain that with dealers they can swap and change, forgetting that it is the dealer and not themselves who is sure to benefit by each exchange.

It astonishes me as a practical breeder how valuable studs can be reared as well as herds of pedigree cattle and flocks of sheep in the Shires, where on every day in the week, Sundays only excepted, any one of half a dozen packs may stampede the lot, causing laming, staking and slipping, or casting their young; for it is trouble and risk enough with horses alone to have to round up and shut up all one’s brood mares and young stock rather than have them excited and dispersed over the adjoining parish through gaps and gates left open. It is not the fliers of the hunt who do the most damage, as experience teaches them to ride at the post or stiffest part of a fence that a horse will clear, instead of blundering through, but the ignoble army of skirters, who will tear down any fence in their efforts to regain the safety of the hard high road. Fortunately, the boastful thruster who shows off by turning a somersault through a new gate when hounds are not running is rare. Much might be done by reducing the quantity and improving the quality of the second horsemen, especially in the crowded Shires.

To sum up; the hunting man would do well in his own interest to show appreciation of the self-denial of the farmer by buying horses, forage and all that he can in the country which he affects, and avoid as far as possible all injury to growing crops, especially when hounds are not running or scent is bad—the days are only too few and choice when one must go straight and fast or go home—and then little harm results. Fences need seldom be broken nor gates left open where stock is, and any man who can afford to hunt can afford to pay a good subscription to enable the Hunt to compensate the farmer by removing and replacing the barbed wire, or, better still, supplying timber for fencing instead, and tactfully recouping Mrs. Farmer for loss of her just perquisite, poultry, even if, with the privilege of her sex, she sometimes opens her mouth a little widely and loudly. I have heard masters of hounds explaining to those who, like myself, have seen “bold Reynard” (see Sponge) carrying off fowls in broad daylight, that foxes do not injure poultry. Unfortunately the vulpine instinct is to prepare for a rainy day, and though we are assured that foxes leave home preserves alone as a reserve fund, it makes little difference whether neighbours or “travellers” clear off and bury the feathered contents of our henroost for future use, whether hungry or not, as the best fed dog will do with a number of bones.

RETURNING FROM MARKET, 1838.(From Sir Walter Gilbey’s paper on “Farms and Small Holdings.”Live Stock Journal Almanac 1906.)Photo by W. Shayer, Senr.

Still, fortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Farmer are a good sort, the former with an innate love of sport and the latter not impervious to soft sawder if laid on judiciously; and if game preservers will unselfishly remember the lines, even if exaggerated, that

“One fox upon foot more enjoyment will bringThan twice twenty thousand pheasants on wing;”

“One fox upon foot more enjoyment will bring

Than twice twenty thousand pheasants on wing;”

and if each Master of Foxhounds will spend as much of the needful as he can locally, and remember that in the twentieth century men do not come out to be d——d; and those who take part in the pleasures of the chase, would subscribe to the great and increasing expenses of the packs which they favour (?) with their presence, observe the courtesy which they would show when “standing down,” and show some consideration for farmers and their gates, fences and crops, I have no fear but that the farmer will do his part as he has hitherto done in the more prosperous past; and to the question as to whether hunting is doomed to extinction or not, we may hopefully and confidently respond, in the words of the good old song:

Oh, perish the thought, may the day never comeWhen the gorse is uprooted, the foxhound is dumb.

Oh, perish the thought, may the day never come

When the gorse is uprooted, the foxhound is dumb.

J. J. D. J.

The Sportsman’s Library.

The “Live Stock Journal Almanac”[1]for 1906 contains a great many matters of interest. Sir Walter Gilbey’s article on “Farms and Small Holdings as Affected by Enclosures, Markets and Fairs” is full of information, and is particularly opportune in respect of the author’s remarks on small holdings. It is made clear that the oft-urged plea for the return of the excess urban population to rural pursuits cannot be acceded to under existing conditions. It was right of common that made the small holding possible in old days; and now that successive enclosure acts have removed the facilities the small holder enjoyed for pasturing his stock, the situation is radically altered.

Mr. G. S. Lowe contributes a very entertaining paper on “Horse Dealers Past and Present,” a subject full of possibilities, and of which he makes good use. Mr. C. J. Cornish deals with a topic that appeals to the naturalist in “Animals’ Foster-Children”; he reviews numerous curious cases of adoption, the strangest, perhaps, being the appropriation of chickens by a cat; the reverse, a hen taking possession of kittens, has also been recorded. All who wish to see betting placed on a sound and intelligible footing will be glad to see that Sir Walter Gilbey is heartily in favour of adopting thepari mutuel, or totaliser system, in this country; he makes out a strong case for it in “How Betting should Aid Agriculture.” The advantages of the system are so manifest that it is strange we should not have accepted it in England long since. Mr. C. B. Pitman, as usual, writes on “Thoroughbreds in 1905,” reviewing the performances of the more conspicuous horses of the season, the sales at Newmarket and Doncaster, and the show of the Royal Commission. Mr. Scarth Dixon writes on Cleveland bays and Yorkshire coach horses, and “E.” considers the Hackney: we notice that he regards the classes of Hackneys at the Royal this year as much above the average. The pony-breeding industry continues to make progress. Breeders of ponies for polo—all interested in the game—should read Mr. John Hill’s informing article on “Ponies in 1905.” In “Show Hunters of the Year” the successes of various studs and individual horses are reviewed; a portrait of Mr. Stokes’ gelding, Whiskey, accompanies the article. Mr. Vero Shaw deals with “Harness Horses”; old favourites, as he observes, have been mostly to the fore during the year. Passing over the very instructive articles on the heavy breeds of horses, we come to an essay by Mr. Harold Leeney, M.R.C.V.S., on “Brain Diseases in Animals,” an obscure subject to the lay reader. Mr. Leeney, however, tells us that the veterinary practitioner has to deal with a good many cases of brain and spinal cord trouble among domestic animals. Mr. C. Stein contributes an interesting article on “The Jersey Cow at Home,” while Mr. John Thornton’s comprehensive review of Shorthorns in 1905 is full of interest as usual. All the more notable varieties of cattle and sheep are dealt with in turn by acknowledged experts, but space forbids us to glance at the contents of these essays. Mr. F. Gresham must be thanked for his article on the “Working Spaniel,” directly and closely appealing to sportsmen who have ever used spaniels. Mr. Tegetmeier’s article on “The Management of Farmyard Poultry” contains many practical and useful hints.

Admirably illustrated and full of items of information indispensable to the dweller in the country, theAlmanacseems to us to be more complete than ever this year.

We have received Part V. of “George Fothergill’s Sketch Book,” a work by this time well known to sportsmen who can appreciate clever drawings of hunting subjects, as well as to a wider circle of readers and picture-lovers. A coloured portrait of Mr. George Rimington, eldest brother of the soldier who made such a reputation in South Africa, forms the leading feature: it is faced by “Gone Away,” a set of hunting verses which possess spirit, rhythm and swing, recalling “We’ll all go a-hunting to-day.” The majority of the pages are occupied by sketches of Haughton le Skerne in co. Durham and its environs. The career of William Bewick, the artist-naturalist, furnishes Dr. Fothergill with subject matter for an interesting biographical sketch.

Thomas’Hunting Diary, edited by Messrs. W. May and A. Coaten, and published at theCounty Gentleman and Land and Wateroffice, grows larger and more complete every season. Mr. A. E. Burnaby contributes a good article on “The Art of Riding to Hounds.” Mr. Richard Ord has some very judicious observations to make on “The Duty of the Foxhunter towards the Farmer.” “Maintop,” the pseudonym adopted by a well-known Irish sportsman and writer, discusses “Knowledge of Hounds” in a particularly practical spirit, and incidentally touches lightly but firmly on the “sins of some ladies” in the hunting field. Then we have some chapters on hunting clothes and their care, and some informing pages concerning the packs of foxhounds abroad. It will perhaps surprise some readers to learn that foxhunting exists in nearly every British Colony.

Gale’s Almanac, published at 12, St. Bride Street, E.C., is full of information indispensable to racing men and to athletes, containing, as it does, a mine of facts relating to the turf, to cricket, football, billiards, athletics, rowing, lawn tennis, boxing and swimming. Racing occupies the bulk of theAlmanac, and the information bearing on horses, their performances, form and prospects, is well worth careful study. The “Racing Facts” in particular appeal to us. TheAlmanacis well illustrated with portraits of owners, trainers, jockeys and horses of note.

The ever-welcomeBadminton Diary, published at 43, Dover Street, W., makes its appearance this season in a new cover, which makes it look somewhat larger than the handy friend now so familiar. The new issue contains several new features, chiefly appealing to the motorist and polo player: the former will find a “motor trip register,” a list of motor records, motor road signs and identification marks. The lists of polo clubs, fixtures and records are also new.

It is interesting to see how fully those to whom is entrusted the development of our colonies are realising the value of game as an attraction to settlers of the most desirable stamp. We have received from the Agent-General of British Columbia a beautifully illustrated pamphlet which contains full particulars of the game, beast, bird and fish of that colony, with much helpful advice as to ways and means. The vast areas of virgin country offer great choice of game to the shooting man: three species of bear, four species of mountain sheep; also wapiti, caribou and deer. Various species of grouse, wildfowl and snipe are abundant, while every stream and lake offers salmon or trout-fishing, or both.

In Pursuit of the Pike.

If anybody had the requisite industry to compile a history of modern pike-fishing, it would be found that 1905 would stand out very prominently in at least two respects. In the first place, it has been a remarkable year for the number of heavy specimen fish caught by honest angling with rod and line; and in the second place, the year has been noteworthy for the number of curious stories which have appeared in the sporting prints dealing with what is commonly called the “voracity” of the pike. I have no wish to make this article a mere epitome of the angling reports which appear week by week in the various fishing journals, but as I have for many years past compiled a diary of all important catches, I am entitled to say that 1905 was a specially interesting year in the matter of big pike hooked and landed. This last reservation is needed, for we all hook, but very rarely land, the biggest fish in the waters wherein we angle. For instance, it has been my own ambition for years to catch a 20 lb. pike, and I have spent months and months at the water side in its vain pursuit; yet nothing bigger than a ten-pounder has ever fallen to my lot, while I have had the grim pleasure of seeing comparative novices hook and carry away with unconcern fish I myself would almost have given an ear to have played on my own rod. Yet I verily believeIhave hooked fish of specimen size. Thus, I have an old spoon bait which is not merely indented with numberless teeth marks, but is even jagged and torn as though it had been placed in a vice and then wrenched. It was no ten-pounder which did that! But this and all other similar phantom fish are for the moment excluded from our chronicles. We will deal only with pike whose capture and weight are completely verified.

To deal with big pike is to open the door for the weaver of fishing yarns. A good deal of misconception exists as to the weight of pike. There is a boatman on Windermere Lake who tells you, and possibly believes it, that he knows of a pike at the southern end of the lake which must be 50 or 60 lb. weight. He has seen it! He will tell you how it pulls ducks beneath the water, how it takes a spinning bait and crumples rod and line ere it breaks everything before it, and he will solemnly warn novices not to allow themselves to be pulled out of their boat by this insatiable monster. All this is moonshine. The Lake district is favourable to the growth of big pike. Lakes ten, eight and six miles long, swarming with trout and perch, offer exceptional facilities for pike, yet very big fish are rarely caught. For many years past I have only heard of one twenty-pounder, though all the lakes are keenly fished. The record is a pike of 34 lb., caught in Bassenthwaite in 1861, on a spinning bait. The fact is that only few pike reach 20 lb., and fish over that weight, when caught, should be celebrated by a dinner and a fitting glass case. No, the modern pike is not the creature of our youthful imagination. I make it a point to verify all reported fish of over 20 lb., and it is curious how, after a few letters, these monster fish dwindle away. Thus, a 39 lb. pike from Ireland, reported inThe FieldandFishing Gazettein 1904, turned out to be a twenty-eight-pounder when my inquiries were completed. All the apology offered by the correspondent for this most sinful deception was that it was a “mistake.” Then what is the biggest pike of which we have any record caught by angling? The honour belongs to Ireland. A pike was caught there in 1900, and sent to theFishing GazetteOffice, and it was made clear beyond doubt that it weighed 40½ lb. But the fish was caught in the spawning season, was heavy with several pounds of spawn, and in normal conditions would probably not have weighed more than about 35 lb. The fish next to this should really come before it, for it was caught in the early part of this year, in the winter, was free from spawn, and every ounce of it seems to be honest weight. It was caught in Lough Mask by a water bailiff named Connor, and its weight was verified by railway officials who saw it weighed, as well as by Williams and Son, the Dublin naturalists, to whom it was sent for preservation. It weighed 38 lb. Unhappily, we are not so clear as to the method of its capture. I wrote to Williams and Son, and received a letter back in which they lamented its inglorious end. They told me it was netted. I published this letter in theFishing Gazette, when lo, the Rev. Mr. Curran wrote and denied it, and affirmed most positively that Connor caught it by fair fishing, on a rod and line, with a Blue Phantom as bait. Coming a little lower in the scale, there is no doubt at all about the next best fish to this monster from the Mask. The honour of catching the record English pike belongs to Mr. Alfred Jardine, who in 1879 caught one in a private water of the weight of 37 lb. He had already previously captured one of 36 lb. Since then that record has only twice been beaten by the two Irish pike mentioned above, and, as I have shown, one of them should be disqualified by reason of being with spawn, and the other is still invested with mystery as to the method of its capture. If we admit gaffed or netted fish into our chronicles we must enlarge our figures, for netting and gaffing are purposely carried on when the fish work into the shallows to deposit their spawn, and they naturally reach heavier weights then than at other times. There are authentic records of fish over 40 lb. thus caught.

In the early part of 1905, Major Mainwaring verified inThe Field, two pike gaffed in Lough Mask—one 42 lb., the other 48 lb.; the latter had just spawned; otherwise, as the Major wrote, it might very easily have brought down the scale at 60 lb. Then there is a record of a pike weighing 61 lb. being caught in the River Bann in Ireland, in 1894, measuring over four feet, and containing over 7 lb. of spawn; and we have English records, mainly from the Norfolk Broads and the Lincolnshire Fens, of pike netted during the spawning period and weighing full 40 lb. We are face to face with the fact, therefore, that we can verify the capture of a pike 37 lb. by an English angler, and that by netting or gaffing, pike up to 60 lb. or thereabouts have been taken out of Irish waters.

It is necessary that these figures should be stated, because they are useful as a standard to compare the pike caught in the early months of 1905. The record for the season weighed 33½ lb. Quite a number over 30 lb. were caught, more so than for a number of years past. But, to my mind, the two facts of greatest importance which emerge from a study of my pike records are these: first, that February is the very best month of the year for catching pike; and second, that spinning is the deadliest method. Take the first of these propositions. In February last Mr. Oliver Procter and two friends had a day’s pike fishing on a private water in Nottinghamshire. The name of the place was not given, but internal evidence in their narrative tells me that it was the private lake at Clumber, the Duke of Newcastle’s place. In one day these three rods caught, by spinning, fifty-six pike, weighing 468½ lb. The best fish weighed 31 lb. and the smallest was actually 6 lb. One rod got 32 fish, weighing 275 lb.; another rod had 17 fish, weighing 119½ lb.; the other rod, Mr. Procter himself, had seven fish, weighing 74 lb. The latter average is very high, but it included the best fish of the day, the 31-pounder. As each rod could only keep three fish, all the rest were safely returned to the water. I have asked the reader to note that this was a February catch and that they were caught spinning. A few days later, in the same month, three Nottingham anglers had a day on this same water. By spinning they accounted for 52 pike, weighing 425 lb. The heaviest was 33½ lb., was the record pike of the year, and was caught by Mr. F. W. K. Wallis, of Nottingham. I have not yet done with February, nor with spinning. In the same month two Wolverhampton anglers, one of them a clergyman, fishing a water not named, caught 52 pike between them, all by spinning. The total weight was not recorded, but they gave away over 2 cwt. to the deserving poor of Wolverhampton. Another February case was that of Mr. R. C. H. Corfe and Mr. M. R. L. White, of the Fly Fishers’ Club. Spinning, they caught 55 pike in a day’s angling. The largest was only 18½ lb., but they touched bigger fish, for as they were landing a four-pounder it was wrenched off the hooks and carried away by a pike which Mr. White estimated at 30 lb. or thereabouts. They were all caught by spinning dace or sprats on an Abbey Mills spinner. Again, in that same February, a college student reported toThe Fieldhow, in two hours’ spinning, during a snow-storm, using a silver Devon on the Wye near Hereford, he caught four pike, 27½ lb., 15 lb., 8 lb. and 6 lb. These records, all from 1905, surely establish February’s claim to rank as the premier pike month of the year. Going further back, I find that other years substantiate this claim. Mr. Jardine, in his book on pike-fishing, gives a list of sixty record fish, and thirty of them belong to the end of January and the month of February.

There can be no doubt, therefore, that the angler who defers his pike fishing till the winter is nearing the end has the root of the matter in him. There are some waters in Lincolnshire, the home of big pike, where you are not thanked to go a-fishing till near the Christmas holidays. The old couplet about winter “driving into madness every plunging pike” was founded upon very close observation. The dying away of weeds and the consequent loss of shelter to the pike, and the hibernation of the small fish upon which he preys, added to the frost, give him a keen appetite, and it is then that the angler has his best chance, for, after all, you are likelier to catch any fish when he is hungry than when he is lazy and fat and has no need to bestir himself to find a meal. This very naturally brings me to the second of my propositions, that spinning is in winter the deadliest method of capturing pike. In the early autumn live-baiting and paternostering are, to my thinking, the more effective. The pike is then in his lair. He is lying up in his weed bed, grimly watching all that goes on in the watery world outside. You take your live bait, either on float-tackle or on a paternoster, and you drop it right in front of his nose; and he is a very sulky pike indeed who allows it to pass him by without a protest. If you are spinning you may cover acres of water and never have the luck to get near enough to him to attract his attention, but in winter the conditions are altogether different. Cold and hunger have driven him out of his summer fastnesses. He is roaming hither and thither in search of food. Every faculty is on the alert, and woe betide the hapless creature that comes within the range of his vision. It matters not whether it is a rat swimming across to his hole on the opposite bank, a dab-chick aimlessly swimming about, a water-hen or a duckling, it is all the same to Master Pike. What more natural, therefore, that a well-spun bait drawn across his very eyes should in a moment rouse him to anger? All the records I have already given were the result of spinning. Now in the Badminton volume on Pike Mr. Pennell, who is a confirmed pike-spinner, rather suggests that the biggest pike are generally caught with live-bait and not by spinning. True, Mr. Jardine’s 37-pounder was on live-bait, but the Irish 38-pounder, according to my clerical correspondent, was on a spinner. This year’s record, a 33½ pounder, was on a spinner, and so was Mr. Procter’s best fish, a 31-pounder. The record of 1903, a 34-lb. pike taken in the Wye, was caught by spinning a dace on Abbey tackle, and in February, it may be added. That same year Canon Dyke, of Ashford, Kent, wrote toThe Field, saying that spinning had always brought him good results. He instanced several pike up to 28 lb. he himself had caught while spinning. More conclusive than this, however, was a remarkable diary published inThe Fieldin 1903. In 204 days’ fishing the diarist caught 1,665 pike, an average of about eight fish per day. The gross weight was 2 tons 10 cwt. 62 lb., and it works out at an average of nearly 3½ lb. per fish; but the most striking thing about the record is this, that all were caught by spinning. About a dozen were taken on a spoon, the remainder fell victims to spinning a five-inch dace. The moral of this is obvious. If you want to catch large pike and many of them, you must spin. If you merely want an isolated fish, if you set your mind on some monster whom you know to inhabit a certain hole, you may adopt the method of the dry-fly man and stalk him with a lively roach of ½ lb. weight, but if you are in earnest and wish to make a big bag, you most assuredly will have to arm yourself with plenty of spinning tackle. I can give instances without end of good pike which have fallen to the spinner. Here are a recent few at random: a 27-pounder, 1903, from the Irish Blackwater, caught by spinning a trout; a 34½-pounder, caught with a spoon, by a Bolton angler, in 1903, at Lochmaben, near Dumfries, and so on. And here are other fine records to the credit of the spinner. In September, 1903, two members of the Palmerston Angling Society, fishing two days in a Cambridgeshire water, landed 127 pike, all of them falling to pickled sprats and dace.

Then there is a remarkable catch by Mr. F. Shroeder, a York angler, who, fishing Hornsea Mere, near Hull, in 1902, caught 65 pike in a day, weighing 348 lb. The heaviest was 13½ lb. Another day Mr. Shroeder tells me he caught ten pike in the same water before breakfast, weighing 110 lb., including a 23-pounder and a 20-pounder. I asked Mr. Shroeder how he got them, and his reply is, in the morning by spinning a dead bait on an ordinary flight, and in the afternoon by live-baiting, but principally by spinning. I have just tracked another remarkable catch to the credit of the spinner. Mr. Albert Shlor, of Worksop, wrote in October this year to the fishing papers, stating that he had just caught twenty-one pike, in a private lake, in five and a half hours, of a total weight of over 149 lb., the heaviest being 13 lb. 11 oz. I wrote to Mr. Shlor, and he tells me he caught them all by spinning. Fifteen were taken on a Colorado spoon. Then he put on a dead gudgeon, on an ordinary flight made by himself, and having no flanges or spinning arrangement, the spin being obtained, as in Mr. Shroeder’s case just mentioned, by bending the tail of the fish. Well, out of seven runs with this tackle Mr. Shlor, who is only twenty years of age, landed six pike. That is something like fishing, and it is something like spinning. For, as Mr. Shlor tells me, his brother, who was fishing with him and using live bait, only landed two fish, and only had three runs altogether! But if this is not enough, Mr. White, of the Fly Fishers’ Club, says in a letter that he has frequently had up to forty-five pike to his own rod in a single day by spinning, and once, in company with another, they took seventy-five in a day’s spinning, though they “shook off,” all under about 10 lb. or so. Had they retained all, their total would have been fully 100 pike for the day. And while this is in the printer’s hands, I have a letter from Mr. O. Overbeck, of Grimsby, the champion carp fisher, who tells me that it was spinning dead roach that he caught, at Clumber in 1903, thirty-one pike in four hours, of a total weight of 187½ lb.

Now, if spinning is the deadliest method, it is a fair question to inquire which particular form of spinner holds the field for the best results. Every pike angler has his favourite lure. Personally, I find the spoon the most effective. In an article inThe Fieldonce I gave the tabulated results of my season’s pike fishing. I used two artificial baits, a Kill-devil Devon and a common spoon, and pickled dace on an Archer spinner. The spoon easily came first, then the Kill-devil. I obtained the worst results with the natural bait, but the local conditions and personal preference count in this vexed question. For instance, in the Lake district a spoon is always the most effective. Pike there feed on perch every day of their lives. There is nothing tempting or novel to them in the sight of a spinning perch. Put a spoon on, or a Phantom, and you will be into good fish almost immediately. There is even room for taste in spoons. You may fish half a day on Esthwaite Lake with a plated spoon and never touch a fish. Change it for a Norwich spoon, on which is painted the head and eye of a fish, and you may catch half-a-dozen good pike in the hour. Who shall account for this? There are other waters where the spoon is never looked at by a fish. You must have real fish for bait, or you will do nothing at all. My own observation leads me to this conclusion, that in the North of England the spoon is the best lure; in the Midlands and the South natural fish have the advantage as bait. Finally, a word as to size. It seems to me that in spinning for pike the very reverse holds good to the ascertained facts of live-baiting. In the latter form of fishing you must have large baits to catch large fish. Mr. Jardine’s 37-pounder was caught with a ½-lb. roach. Some anglers—Mr. Pennell is one—use and recommend jack up to 2 lb. as lively bait for their big brothers and parents, but in spinning you must use a small bait. If it is a spoon, or an imitation fish, anything over three inches and a half is a waste of money and a menace to good results. Pickled dace or roach should never exceed five inches. Mr. M. R. L. White has often emphasised this point. He says he has many times turned a bad day into a good one by changing to the smallest bait he had, and he tells of one occasion where, obstinately sticking to big bait, he hardly got a fish, while his friend, fishing the same water with him, but using smaller bait, landed thirty-five. A correspondent in theFishing Gazettelast year drew attention to the fact that the three largest pike which had come under his personal notice were taken on small baits, one of 38 lb. on a spoon only an inch and a half long; another of 32½ lb. on a roach of three and a half inches, and a third of 30 lb., also on a very small roach. I am entitled to claim, therefore, that this rapid survey of some recent records of pike fishing demonstrates three facts which are worth remembering: that February or thereabouts is the best time to catch pike, that spinning is the deadliest method, and that a small spinner, whether natural or artificial, has undoubtedly all the advantages on its side.

It is with some diffidence that I approach the second half of my subject. For years the angling humorist has poked fun at what the newspapers all agree in terming the “voracity” of the pike. Let me say at the outset that the reader will find nothing here of that pike which chased an angler round a three-acre field in a snow-storm; nor of that other pike which leaped out of the water, seized the angler’s pannier and made off with its contents; nor of that other which, when an unfortunate rodsman fell into the river, kindly took him in his mouth and gently conveyed him to the bank again. The recital of these yarns must be sought for elsewhere. Still, I cannot help recalling the capital story told by Lord Claud Hamilton at the last dinner of the Fly Fishers’ Club. An Irishman had caught a big pike. Noting a lump in its stomach, he cut it open. “As I cut it open there was a mighty rush and a flapping of wings, and away flew a wild duck; and, begorra, when I looked inside, there was a nest with four eggs, and she had been after sitting on that nest.” The pike has always been fair game for the yarn-spinner, and some of the very best of his products have naturally come from Ireland. The most curious story of 1905 hailed from Pickering, in Yorkshire. Dr. Robertson, of that town, is its author. He tells how he was sent for by a farmer friend to see his son, who, so ran the message, had been bitten by a fish. On arrival, the doctor found that the lad’s foot bore unmistakable marks of teeth, and the wound was so severe it required stitching. The lad’s story was that he had been bathing. After leaving the river he sat on the edge of the bank, with his foot near the water, and while there a pike jumped up and bit him. His cries attracted a woman, who bound his foot up and assisted him home. To complete the story, a local angler was shown the spot, and on casting over it with a spinning bait he hooked and caught a 6 lb. pike. Now, there is nothing improbable in this, though a good deal of unkind fun was poked at Dr. Robertson. But the doctor was responsible for nothing beyond telling the tale; and remember, he had seen the lad and stitched up the wound, he had seen the woman who had carried him home, and he had seen the angler who subsequently caught a pike at the very spot. What we know of the propensities of the pike is sufficient to make us believe anything which throws light upon the ferocity of his nature. Most anglers have had their hands gashed by the snapping brutes during the operation of releasing tackle on waters where most of the fish have to be returned. I have seen an oar deeply bitten by a 10 lb. pike; and one of my heavy fishing boots has marks on the heel where a small pike once caught on like grim death. Indeed, my companion had to kick him loose. For my own part, I believe Dr. Robertson’s story. He had no motive to embellish it, and there were so many parties to it that exaggeration would sooner or later have been discovered. As it is, the incident is a striking corroboration of the remarkable stories collected by Mr. Pennell in the Badminton volume on Pike.

Now, the orthodox stories of pike “voracity” divide themselves into two clearly-defined sections. The first of these is concerned with its gluttonous appetite—its onslaught on smaller fish, its appetite for rats, ducks and kindred morsels. I have collected some thousands of these incidents. But why reproduce them? We all know that the pike has a fearful appetite, that his swallowing powers are enormous, and that sometimes, to use an expressive Americanism, he bites off more than he can chew. Thus, we read of a 3½ lb. pike choked trying to swallow a 1¼ lb. trout; of a 9 lb. pike containing a 1½ lb. perch; of a 28 lb. pike containing a 6 lb. grilse; of a 2 lb. pike taking a spoon when he was so full that the tail of a pound trout was protruding from his mouth; of an Irish pike of 3½ lb. containing a trout of 1¼ lb.; and of others containing ducks, rats, waterhens, and even stoats. The plain fact is, of course, that the pike is a creature of prey, and like all creatures of prey, he is savage and implacable. He eats till he is full, and even then he takes good care not to refuse any tempting morsel which comes within range of his fearful jaws. His destructiveness can hardly be estimated in figures. If he eats his own weight per week, which is surely under the estimate, he requires a fish colony for his own table purposes alone.

A pike of 25 lb. was this season netted in the Lune, a first-class northern trout-stream. By his look he was an old fish, and he was well fed. How many tons of trout had he got through in his long lifetime? It is bad enough when they confine themselves to big fish, but when they get among the fry it is even worse, for they are destroying the very sources of a stream’s productiveness. And, alas, they have a liking for young and tender fish, as the keepers of our best waters know to their cost. Last year a pike of 4 lb. 11 oz. was caught by a Birmingham angler, and on opening it at the clubhouse its stomach was found to contain no fewer than 274 small fish of an inch to an inch and a half long, the fry of roach and bream. No wonder that in trout and salmon waters the pike is regarded as a pest and is kept down by every method the wit of the harassed keeper can devise.

To my mind, the most interesting pike stories are those which centre round its capture. What must Mr. White’s feelings have been like when his 4 lb. pike was snatched off the hooks and carried away by a 30-pounder just as he was about to gaff it? Or that of the angler in Tyrone, who, reeling in an 8 lb. pike, had it attacked by a much larger pike, which, though it could not pull the fish off the hooks, scored it with wounds five inches long, and half an inch deep.

Most of us have had similar experiences, if on a small scale. In a trout stream where pike abound, it is a common thing to lose your trout just at the supreme moment through a pike thinking he has a greater right to him than you have. But it is not often that the angler is so fortunate as was a correspondent who wrote to theFishing Gazette. His 2 lb. trout was seized by a 5 lb. pike. The pike held on while the angler reeled in towards the boat; then the attendant slipped his net beneath them and landed the pair. Thus was piracy adequately punished. Sometimes, ignoring the bait, a pike will seize the float or the lead, and his teeth becoming entangled in the line he will be landed.

Once an account appeared inThe Fieldof a good-sized pike caught in a most remarkable fashion. A net of fish as bait was hanging over the side of a boat. A pike attacked these fish, and becoming involved in the mesh was drawn aboard and killed. I think there can be no reasonable doubt about the fact that pike do not feel pain. Else why do they repeatedly go for the same bait? I was once minnowing for trout and hooked a big pike. He broke me and sailed away with a yard of gut, to say nothing of three triangles somewhere about his jaws. I put on another minnow and resumed fishing. Two or three times that pike followed my bait to a yard of the side, irresolute. At last he took it. He was more than I could manage, and again he broke me, and again he sailed off with minnow, hooks, and half my cast. He had now two minnow tackles about him, representing six triangles, or eighteen hooks in all, and if they caused no pain they at least must have produced discomfort. But note what happened. In my bag I found by accident I had put in an old spoon on gimp. I put this on my trout line and cast again. Would it be believed, that pike came once more and took my spoon. Surely, thought I, he is mine this time. I played him ten minutes and then drew him to the side, but somehow, my line fouled and we parted company, myself minus a spoon and triangles. Altogether that pike had twenty-four hooks of mine in his possession. I returned next day with a pike rod and tackle, but he had had enough. Now, although this is an extreme case, it is almost paralleled by other experiences. An angler last season on Frensham Pond, Surrey, using two rods, hooked a pike and lost it on one tackle, the line breaking. Within five minutes the same pike took the other bait and was landed on the other rod, with the first tackle securely fixed in his jaws. A very curious instance was reported from the Thames. In March, 1903, a Mr. Wilton hooked a pike which broke away and took his Archer spinner with him. On February 28th, 1904, eleven months later, Mr. Wilton and his nephew were fishing in the same spot. The nephew hooked a pike, and, on taking it out of the water, Mr. Wilton’s spinner was found in his lower jaw. There was no doubt about it being the same spinner, as Brookes, the fisherman to the Guards Club at Maidenhead, supplied it and was there when it was recovered, and identified it by his wrappings. The lapse of a year had dulled the pike’s memory of the earlier encounter, but there are innumerable instances of pike going for bait twice within a few minutes. Thus a Thames reporter tells how a trout spinner, in March, 1905, saw his bait taken and his line broken by a pike. He put on another bait and tackle. At the very first cast he hooked and landed the same pike, and thus recovered intact his first flight. Obviously the fish had felt neither pain nor discomfort from his first experience, otherwise he would never have been rash enough to repeat it five minutes later. One other similar instance out of many. In August of this year an angler caught a pike of about a pound in the Medway. He put it back, but first cut off part of one of its fins to test its rate of growth if ever it were caught again. Then he baited again, and in less than a quarter of an hour caught that identical pike a second time. So I might go on telling of pike that have gone for two baits at once and been hauled in by a couple of rods simultaneously; of pike that—but hold, enough! Surely I have fulfilled the purpose with which I set out, and that was to demonstrate the interest and excitement of winter pike-fishing, and to show that no branch of the angler’s art is more surrounded by incident and anecdote than the quest and capture of the king of all the coarse fish.

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