Chapter III 

 Description of the American Pikes 



"One of the earliest writers by whom the pike is distinctly 

 chronicled is Ausonius, living about the middle of the fourth 

 century, and who thus asperses its character: 



'Lucius obscurus ulva lacunas 



Obsidet. Hie, nullos mensarum lectus ad usus, 



Fumat fumosis olido nidore popinis.' 



'The wary Luce, midst wrack and rushes hid. 

 The scourge and terror of the scaly brood. 



Unknown at friendship's hospitable board, 



Smokes midst the smoky tavern's coarsest food.' " 

 — PennelVs "Book of the Pike." 



MY READERS have already discovered that 

 America is rich in pikes. The Old World 

 can boast of but one species, Esox lucius, the 

 fish which, with us, should be known as Great Lakes 

 pike or great pike, to differentiate it from the common 

 pickerel, though unfortunately that latter name is 

 often bestowed upon the Great Lakes fish and even 

 the muskellunge itself. Hereafter I shall denote the 

 Great Lakes pike — not the muskellunge, you under- 

 stand — as Great Pike, and use the name throughout 

 this work. 



The great pike is fairly common in all suitable 

 waters of North America, Europe, and Asia, the one 

 cosmopolitan of the family. In North America we 

 have, according to Jordan and Evermann, six addi- 

 tional species, to wit, the banded pickerel, little pick- 

 erel, eastern pickerel, muskellunge, Chautauqua mus- 

 kellunge, and great northern pike or plain 'lunge, 

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