24 LAKE SUPERIOR. 



tected by -water-proof garments, while he, regardless of wet and 

 cold, sat soaking in the canoe, enraptured by the variety of the 

 scaly tribe, described and undescribed, hauled in by their combined 

 efforts. Not content with this, he as iisual interested and engaged 

 various inhabitants of the place to supply him with a complete set 

 of the fishes found here. 



With a view of indoctrinating those of us who were altogether 

 new to ichthyology with some general views on the subject, he com- 

 menced in the afternoon, scalpel in hand, and a board well covered 

 with fishes little and big before him, a discussion of their classifica- 

 tion : 



" These fishes present examples of all the four great divisions of the 

 class. This pike, (Lucioperca americana,} belongs to those having 

 rough scales and spinous fins. The rays of the first dorsal, and the an- 

 terior ones of the ventrals and the anal are simple and spinous ; the other 

 rays are divided at the extremity, and softer. The scales are rough and 

 remarkably serrate. These are the CTENOIDS. They have five sorts of 

 fins, viz : the dorsal, caudal and anal, which are placed vertically iu the 

 median line, and can be raised or depressed, and the ventral and anal, 

 which are in pairs. In the Ctenoids the ventrals are placed immediately 

 below the pectorals, though fishes having this arrangement of fins do not all 

 belong to this division. There are but two families of Ctenoids found in 

 fresh water : the Percoids and the Cottoids ; the former are characterized 

 by having teeth on the palatal and intermaxillary bones, but none on the 

 maxillary. Also by a serrate preoperculum and by the spines on the oper- 

 culum. Of this family are the genera Perca, Labrax, Pomotis, Oentrar- 

 chus, &c. The fish before us belongs to the genus Lucioperca. They 

 have a wide mouth and large conical teeth, like the pickerels, and two dorsals. 

 There are two species in Europe and two in the United States. This is L. 

 ameritana; its color is a greenish brown above, with whitish below, and 

 golden stripes on the sides. On opening the fish we find the heart very far 

 in front, between the gills, and consisting of a triangular ventricle, a loose 

 hanging auricle, and a bulbous expansion of the aorta. All the Percoids 

 have three coacal appendices from the pyloric extremity of the stomach. 

 These probably take the place of a pancreas. Below is the air-bladder, 

 which is a rudimentary lung. Above this are the ovaries, which extend from 

 one extremity of the abdomen to the other. Behind is the kidney, extend- 

 ing along the spine. 



