254 



ICHTHYOLOGY. 



Classifica- 

 tion — Ma- 

 lacopteri. 



was in 1537. Leland 'mentions that a Pike of great size 

 was taken in Ramesmere, Huntingdonsliire, in the reign 

 of Edgar. Pikes are proverbially voracious. There seems, 

 indeed, to be no bounds to their gluttony ; for they devour 

 indiscriminately whatever edible substances they fall in with, 

 and almost every animal they are able to subdue. " It is," 

 says M. de Lacejiede, " the Shark of the fresh waters ; it 

 reigns there a devastating tyrant, like tlie shark in the midst 

 of the ocean ; insatiable in its appetites, it ravages with fear- 

 ful rapidity the streams, the lakes, and the fish-ponds that 

 it inhabits. Blindly ferocious, it does not spare its species, 

 and even devours its own young ; gluttonous without choice, 

 it tears and swallows, with a sort of fury, the remains even 

 of putrified carcasses. This bloodthirsty animal is also one 

 of those to which nature has accorded the longest duration 

 of yeai-s ; for ages it terrifies, agitates, pursues, destroys, 

 and consumes the feeble inhabitants of the waters which it 

 infests; and as if, in spite of its insatiable cruelty, it was 

 meant that it should receive every advantage, it has not 

 only been gifted with strength, with size, with numerous 

 weapons, but it has also been adorned with elegance of 

 form, symmetry of proportions, and variety and richness 

 of colour." A singular instance of its voracity is related by 

 Johnston, who asserts that he saw one killed which con- 

 tained in its belly another Pike of large size, and the latter, 

 on being opened, was found to have swallowed a water-rat ! 

 Its flesh is well flavoured and easy of digestion, and is con- 

 sequently much sought after as an article of food, especially 

 for convalescents, and others of weakly habit. It is most 

 tender and nutritive in young individuals, but full-grown 

 Pikes are occasionally found in which the flesh on the back 

 and near the vertebral column acquires a greenish colour, 

 which is held in high repute, and often purchased at a great 

 |)rice. Sibbald, writing in the reign of Charles the Second, 

 says that the heart of the Pike is a remedy against febrile 

 paroxysms, that the gall is of much use in affections of the 

 eyes, that the dried jaws reduced to powder are a remedy 

 in pleurisy, gravel, and stone in the bladder, and that the 

 ashes of the fish are used to dress old wounds. These and 

 the rest of his statements on medical subjects have the 

 formal approbation of the President and Censor of the 

 Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. 



Even the names of the Pike is a subject not without its 

 interest. It is the Liicio or Luzzo of the Italians, an appel- 

 lation evidently descended from the Latin lucivs. Auso- 

 nius, in using this term, says that it ivas a despised fish on 

 the Moselle, very contrary to the estimation in which it was 

 held in England ten centuries later — ■ 



" Lucius, obscuras ulva cni'noque lacunas 

 Obsidet. Hie nullos mensaruni lectus ad usus, 

 Fervet fumosis olido nidore popinis." 



In Sweden it is named Giidda, and in Denmark Giedde, 

 Gedde, Gede, or Gei, names differing little from the ap- 

 pellation of the fish in the lowlands of Scotland, " Ged," and 

 showing, with many other instances of Scandinavian words 

 relating to maritime affairs and fisheries, the origin of the 

 population that dis|)laced the Celtic races from the country 

 lying to the south of the Firth of Forth, and on the east 

 coast of Scotland still farther north. M. Valenciennes has 

 printed a long list of the names which the fish bears among 

 the Sclavonic and Tartar peoples, none of which seem to 

 have any relation to those by which it is known on the 

 western coast of Europe. The Scandinavian name had 

 probably its origin in the sharpness of the teeth of the Pike, 

 and the conseq\ient danger of injury to those who attempted 

 to handle it, for we find a similar word, Gede or Geede, 

 used to designate a goat in Danish (also lowland Scottish 

 " Gait"), and Gedc/iains, to signify a hornet. The English 

 names Pike and Pickerel are evidently sprung from the 

 Saxon Piik (sharp-pointed), and the French Canadians 

 term the Lucioperca of that country the Piccarel, which 



it well merits, as its teeth are no less formidable than those ciassifica- 

 oi the Esox lucius. tion — Ma- 



lacopteri. 



Family XlV.— ESOCID^, MiiU. 



Scaly fishes without an adipose fin, and possessing covered glan- 

 dular accessory branchia?. Orifice of the mouth formed above in 

 the middle by the premaxillaries, and on the sides by the max- 

 illaries. A simple swim-blndder. Diffuse vascular ramifications 

 exist on the inner surface of the skin, which are peculiar to this 

 family. Stomach siphonal ; no pancreatic cieca. Type of form 

 the common Pike; inhabitants of fresh waters only, in the northern 

 hemisphere. 



Genus I. Esox, auct. 



GONORHYNCIIS. 



The members of this small family are more interesting 

 from the peculiarities of structure that they exhibit, and 

 which are briefly denoted in the generic characters, than 

 by their importance in an economical point of view. The 

 Chanos, however, has been named Milk Fish, from its de- 

 licacy as an article of food. 



Fig- 77. 

 Chanoa or Lntodeira salmonea. 



A scale of this fish has been represented on a preceding 

 page (fig. 40), and the following woodcuts give the portrait 

 of GonorJujndius Grcyi, a fish of Western Australia, and of 

 one of its scales. 



Fi». 7S. 

 Gonorhynchus Greyi. 



Fig. 79. 

 Scale of Gonorhynclms Greyi. 



On the Alepocephalidce, we have no remarks to make. 



Family XV.— GONORIIYNCHIDiE. 



Gonorhtmques, Valenc. This small family was constituted by M. 

 Valenciennes for the reception of two genera which want oral 

 teeth, and thus have some affinity with the Ciipriniela. 



Genus I. Changs, Lacep. (Lntodrira. Van llass., Riipp.) The 

 Chanos have an affinity to the Chipciilcc without actually belonging 

 to that family, and are separated from the characteristic Herrings 

 by the belly being rounded and not carinated, nor denticulated. 

 They resemble tlie Butin'nidte and Gn7ii)rkmichi in their fatty eye- 

 lids, toothless jaws, and scaly appendages in the axilla; of the pec- 

 torals and ventrals; they have, moreover, a lanceolate scaly fillet 

 above and below the lateral line on each side, extending longitudi- 

 nally over the caudal, dividing the long acute lobes of the forked 

 caudal from a small central portion. Chanos is further character- 



