26 U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
bert 1+ said that a pound was greatly above the average weight, 
which was probably not more than one-half pound. Similarly, the 
general statements regarding the size of the little pickerel are that it 
never attains a length of over 12 inches. 
DISTINGUISHING MARKS 
The genus Esox is divisible into three groups according to the 
squamation of the sides of the head, which easily separates the 
muskellunge, pike, and pickerels. The species may readily be iden- 
tified in the following manner: 
In the muskellunge the cheek, as well as the lower half of the gill 
cover (operculum), is without scales; with the pike the cheeks are 
entirely scaled but the lower half of the gill cover is without scales; 
all the pickerels have the gill covers and cheeks entirely scaled. 
FOOD, HABITS, AND RATE OF GROWTH 
The feeding habits of these fishes are similar; they all subsist 
largely upon other fishes. The muskellunge lurks among weeds or 
old tree tops that have fallen into the water, and will lie there for 
hours, perfectly motionless, awaiting his prey. Like all animals of 
prey, it is solitary in habit. Its breeding places are where the logs, 
stumps, and driftwood are thickest in shallow water, or flowage 
where dead limbs, logs, and brush have accumulated. It is said to 
begin to spawn a few days after the ice is out, and continues until 
the latter part of April in shallow water from 10 to 15 feet deep, 
on muddy bottom, usually going into the bays. 
In spring and summer the pike haunts shallow inlets with weedy 
bottoms and shores overgrown with reeds and rushes. ‘Toward 
autumn it betakes itself to precipitous, stony shores, which it again 
forsakes when winter is at hand and the inlets freeze. Most of the 
pike then return to their summer stations, but the larger ones seem- 
ingly follow the shoals of other fishes to the depths, being seldom 
caught during the winter in shallow water. 
Not much has been written concerning the breeding habits of the 
American pike, and it is necessary to rely for information mainly 
upon what has been published respecting the European fish, which 
is specifically identical with habits supposed to be much the same. 
In the spring, before there is open water in the lakes, the pike com- 
mence to approach the shores, and breeding individuals, in particu- 
lar, repair to those parts of the shore having inlets. When the spring 
is so far advanced that the lakes are free of ice, the brooks clear, and 
the low-lying meadows about the shores are under water, the larger 
pike make their way to those inundated places and begin to spawn. 
The spawning is of long duration, its season depending upon the age 
of the fish, the young spawning first. When these have finished the 
middle-sized pike begin, and the oldest and largest spawn last of all. 
In Illinois the pike spawns in March, selecting shore water about 114 
feet in depth; the eggs hatch in about 14 days. The rate of growth is 
about as follows, depending on the amount of food available: Pike 
1 year old, 10 to 12 inches; 2 years old, 14 to 16 inches; 3 years old, 
22 to 24 inches; 6 years old, 39 inches; 12 years old, 53 inches. 

4 Frank Forester’s Fish and Fishing. By Henry William Herbert. (Esocide, pp. 
217-236.) London, 1849. : 
