COME, LET US COMMUNE TOGETHER. 95 



listeners were entranced when another spoke ? and how we fondly hoped the 

 family circle would remain unbroken for all time ? It was a glorious constellation 

 of contributors, each of whom brought individual richness to the ingathering of 

 the common stock. Well, a catastrophe befell, and the hive scattered, never to 

 swarm again on the old camp ground. Some, as I have said, have passed from 

 life, others perhaps are dead to new associations ; yet I am indulging the earnest 

 hope that those whose names and faces were once familiar may be induced to 

 gather once again around a common altar, inasmuch as the "Angler"' has opened 

 the way by which all may enter. It was a Christian thought which prompted you 

 to set up the Penates again that all may re-unite to kindle the sacred flame. One 

 by one I have watched the old names re-appear, and gleam out like the shining 

 orbs which herald the spangling of the firmament, and I have welcomed each in 

 turn with the ferver of one who hails a beacon light in the gloom. First, came 

 good old "Ned Buntline" "may his years be long and end in peace;" then the 

 ever-faithful gemini Isaac McLellan and "S. C. C." then the steadfast "Al Fresco," 

 friends Rich. Sears, "W. T." and a dozen others who have earned three score 

 years of honors. Where is the rest of the old guard? Where are the veterans 

 Lanman, Conway, Logan, Mosely, Brackett, Kinney, "Ted Grayson," "Asa" and 

 that genial author who wrote the "Pleasures of Angling?" (Who of us have not 

 experienced them?) In the "American Angler" we have a rendezvous where all 

 can meet a campfire where all can toast their shins and string the "long bow"- 

 a sanctuary where the lovers of the gentle art may withdraw in quiet and close 

 communion. Gentlemen it is not meet that we should live longer apart, and let the 

 fires die out. Will you not renew the old love again? "Come, let us commune 

 together !" Pard, I salute you ! 



CHARLES HALLOCK. 



NOTE. The foregoing fraternal greeting to a brother of the angle and the pen was written 

 in 1882. EDITOR. 



THE TRIBE OF ESOX. 



I have found very few anglers gifted with that nice perceptive faculty which 

 enables the ichthyologist to distinguish between the several members of the esox 

 family. Indeed, their distribution is so wide that it is difficult to obtain first speci- 

 mens of each in juxtaposition, so as to compare them together. The habitat of 

 the great northern pike is the Mississippi river and its tributaries, while the 

 muscalonge is peculiar to the St. Lawrence and its tributaries. These are founda- 

 tion data upon which I suppose it is proper to build distinctions. Pickerel (esox 

 reticulatus) of maximum size are often confounded with esox lucius, while lucius 

 is as often substituted for nobilior. All the written descriptions given by well- 

 informed fishermen seem to fail of practical utility in establishing conclusive dis- 

 tinctions when put to actual tests. It is only when the several fish are laid side 

 by side that the fundamental differences become apparent. Some close observers 

 go so far as to claim that there is a pike peculiar to Ohio river tributaries near 

 their sources, which are confounded with both the northern pike and the St. 

 Lawrence muscalonge. Recently, at the residence of Gen. Israel Garrard, in Minne- 

 sota, it was my good fortune to inspect some splendid specimens of these three 

 alleged varieties, which the general discussed with all the critical acumen of a 

 scientific enthusiast, and I accepted his points of discrimination with the ready 

 acquiescence of a disbeliever who wishes to be convinced. I submit the following 

 letter, written since the interview, which may throw some light upon this vexed 



