FOREWORD 



pike," which is not a pike, but a perch, as its book 

 name, "pike-perch," indicates. However, the book 

 name has nothing but its truthfulness to recommend 

 it; it is not exactly descriptive and far from easy to 

 use. I have urged from the platform and through my 

 pages in Outdoor Life the past several years that we 

 call the fish "wall eye," an easy name to use and 

 sufficiently descriptive. Leave the "pike" off always. 

 When we say "pike," always mean pike and nothing 

 else. 



There is the so-called great northern pike, the gray 

 muskellunge of a few Wisconsin and Minnesota lakes. 

 Now he is no more the "true lunge," as some assert, 

 than is his close relative, the Ohio or Great Lakes 

 fish, some writers and fishermen to the contrary not- 

 withstanding. Call him "northern pike" if you want 

 to, but oh, I beg of you, never call the wall-eye a pike ! 



I have enjoyed the gathering together of these 

 chapters even as I enjoyed their first preparation for the 

 pages of Outdoor Life, and I may as well here as any- 

 where make my bow to that good magazine for the 

 privilege of republication in book form. Also I desire 

 to thank Forest and Stream for permission to publish 

 in the appendix the chapter on hybridism of pike and 

 pickerel, for it first appeared under my name in that 

 magazine and brought me many letters from all 

 over the country; therefore it seemed wise to me that 

 it should appear in this, the first American book 

 treating exclusively of the pike family. 



Much of the matter is original, as the reader will 

 discover, and many of the first chapters that appeared 

 in Outdoor Life have been thoroughly rewritten. I 

 have not hesitated to change pages and paragraphs as 



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