The Scyphophori, Haplomi, and Xenomi 193 



widely distributed of all fresh-water fishes, being found from 

 the upper Mississippi Valley, the Great Lakes, and New England 

 to Alaska and throughout northern Asia and Europe. It 

 reaches a weight of ten to twenty pounds or more, being a 

 large strong fish in its way, inferior only to the muskallunge. 

 In England Esox lucius is known as the pike, while its young 

 are called by the diminutive term pickerel. In America the name 

 pickerel is usually given to the smaller species, and sometimes 

 even to Esox lucius itself, the word being with us a synonym 

 for pike, not a diminutive. 



Of the small pike or pickerel we have three species in the 

 eastern United States. They are greenish in color and banded 

 or reticulated, rather than spotted, and, in all, the opercles 

 as well as the cheeks are fully covered with scales. One of 

 these (Esox reticulatus) is the common pickerel of the Eastern 

 States, which reaches a respectable size and is excellent as 

 food. The others, Esox americanus along the Atlantic seaboard 

 and Esox vermiculatus in the middle West, seldom exceed a foot 

 in length and are of no economic importance. 



Numerous fossil species are found in the Tertiary of Europe, 

 Esox lepidotus from the Miocene of Baden being one of the 



FIG. 152. Mud-minnow, Umhra pygmcea (De Kay). New Jersey. 



earliest and the best known ; in this species the scales are much 

 larger than in the recent species. The fossil remains would seem 

 to indicate that the origin of the family was in southern Europe, 

 although most of the living species are American. 



The Mud-minnows. Close to the pike is the family of Um~ 

 brid<z, or mud-minnows, which technically differ from the pikes 



only in the short snout, small mouth, and weak dentition. The 

 1113 



