206 FISHES OF ILI.INOIS 



ESOX VERMICULATUS Le Sueur 



LITTLE pickerel; GRASS PIKE 

 (Map LXI) 



Le Sueur, 1846, in Cuv. & Val., Hist. Nat. Poiss., XVIII, 333. 



G., VI, 230 (cypho); J. & G., 352 (salmoneus) ; M. V., 88; J. & E., I, 627 (Lucius); 

 N., 43 (salmoneus, cypho, and umbrosus) ; J., 53 (salmoneus, cypho, and 

 ravenelii?); F., 71 (Lucius); F. F., IL 7, 435; L., 21 (Lucius). 



Length 12 inches; body elongate, compressed, caudal peduncle slender; 

 depth 5 to 7 (5.2 to 6.7) in length; greatest width of body about ^ its 

 greatest depth; depth caudal peduncle 2 to 2.6 in its length. Color typically 

 grassy to grayish green, with darker streaks, bars, and reticulations, the 

 lighter colored interspaces worm-track-like (hence verm.icvlatus); color 

 variable, sometimes nearly plain; centers of scales (sides) brassy, blue, or 

 green; a yellowish streak along middle of back; belly white; head dark olive 

 with light patches; a dark slaty streak below eye; opercles grassy green; a 

 dusky streak from eye across cheek and opercle; pupil dull l^luish black; iris 

 with narrow inner ring of burnt golden, rest brownish to blue and purplish; 

 caudal mottled near base; other fins dusky in the rays, otherwise plain. Head 

 3 to 3.4 (usually greater than 3.2); width of head 2.8 to 3.2; interorljital 

 concave, 5 to 6.2; eye 5.5 to 6.8, midway of head; nose long, duck-bill-like, 

 shorter than in the next species, 2.4 to 2.7 in head; mouth large, maxillary 

 past front of orbit, 2 to 2.4 in head. Dorsal rays 12; anal 12; caudal well 

 forked; ventrals less than half to vent; pectorals short, 2.8 to 3.3 in head. 

 Scales 103 to 108; cheeks and opercles fully scaled; no supplementary lateral 

 line. 



This little pike, never over 12 inches in length, but frequently 

 mistaken for the young of a larger species, is distributed through- 

 out Illinois, most abundantly, however, according to our ex- 

 perience, in the southern part of the state, where its frequency 

 coefficient rises to 1.73 as compared with .69 for central Illinois 

 and .88 for northern. It is most abundant in creeks, but is also 

 quite common in ponds and the smaller rivers. It has a notice- 

 able preference for quiet and muddy waters, and the greater 

 part of our collections have come from the weedy branches of the 

 Embarras, Little Wabash, and Big Muddy, in eastern and central 

 Illinois. It has also occurred occasionalh^ in the main stream of 

 the Illinois, or in the muddy overflow ponds of the bottoms. 

 Indeed, large numbers of this fish are annually destroyed by 

 the drying up of such ponds after the overflow. 



Its general range includes the tributaries of Lake Erie and 

 Lake Michigan, extending thence southward to the Tennessee, 

 Escanaba, and White rivers, and, according to Evermann and 

 Cox, to the Neuse River on the Atlantic slope. From the fact 

 that it is not contained in Evermann and Goldsborough's list 



