ESOCID^. 155 



except that the edge of the suboperculum is straighter and more 

 vertical, and that the opercula are in a slight degree scaly. 



The gill-openings are very large ; and the branchiostegous rays are 

 fifteen in number, or more numerous by two than in the English Pike, 

 which differs from the Northern Pickerel moreover in the number of 

 all the fin-rays, in having the cheeks and opercula covered with regular 

 scales, as in the Esox Reticulatus, and in the teeth on its vomer and 

 palatine being dispersed into lines, rather than planted in serried 

 patches. 



The Northern Pickerel has dorsal fin-rays, twenty-one ; anal, eigh- 

 teen ; caudal, seven above and seven below the larger lateral rays ; the 

 whole caudal divided into two unequal lobes, the upper of nine, the 

 lower of eight rays ; the ventral eleven, and the anal sixteen. 



The back of this beautiful fish is of a rich blackish green, which 

 changes on the sides to greenish gray ; there is a bright speck on the 

 tip of each scale, which gives a singularly light and sparkling aspect 

 to the whole fish. The belly is of a lustrous pearly white. There 

 are several rows of oblong, diamond-shaped, yellowish gray spots on 

 the sides of the head, body and tail. The cheeks are varied with 

 emerald green reflections, the under jaw and gill-rays white ; the 

 irides purple, with a golden band around the pupil ; the dorsal and 

 caudal fins are blackish green, marked with patchy bands of a darker 

 oil green ; the anal greenish gray, with orange margins, and a few 

 dark spots ; the ventrals the same, with orange tips, but without spots ; 

 the pectorals dusky yellow. 



The Northern Pickerel is equal in boldness and voracity to the 

 Mascalonge, and to the northern European Pike, from which he differs 

 in the fin-rays, dental system, gill-covers, and very essentially in the 

 coloring — the Pike being banded or mottled, and having no indication 

 whatever of the regular rhomboidal spots which mark the sides, and 

 form a characteristic of the Northern Pickerel. 



He takes any sort of bait in spinning or trolling, and being readily 

 captured by set baits through the ice, forms a very essential article of 

 food to the Indian hunter when the chase fails him. No animal food 

 of any kind comes amiss to this fresh-water tyrant. Fish of every 

 variety, even his own species, and the spiny Pearch, the immature 

 young of wild fowl, rats, reptiles of all sorts — in short, every living 



