NORTHERN INLAND FISHES. 2S5 



the States it is called " mascalonge," from the French masque and 

 allonge, (elongated,) longface. The northern pike, tirst described 

 by Agassiz, is sometimes confounded with this fish, but may be 

 easily detected, as it has the lower jaw filled with teeth, whereas 

 the anterior half of the maskinonge is toothless. Some people 

 call it an overgrown pickerel, which is a still worse insult to his 

 nobility. As we contemplate his beautiful proportions, his peculiar 

 whitish complexion, and his massive and not greatly elongated 

 head, we wonder how anglers could ever confound him with 

 the green, alligator-headed pike. Surely those who have ever 

 compared the two together, or eaten of their flesh, could not 

 make this error. However, if there is difficulty in classifying the 

 mascalonge, there is equal confusion among the savans in naming 

 him, for Agassiz and Lesueur call him esox estor, while Thompson 

 and Gill insist that he is esox nobilior. If there be anything in a 

 name, the latter fits him best, for in beauty of form, in game quali- 

 ties, and in excellence of flesh, he stands at the head of the family; 

 besides, he is the Goliath among them all. For some reason unex- 

 plained, unless it be by reason of his nobility, he is a rare fish. In 

 the St. Lawrence, at the Thousand Islands, in the Great Lakes, 

 and in the Upper Mississippi, waters celebrated for the masca- 

 longe, one will not kill more than one of these to a hundred pick- 

 erel. Sometimes they grow^ to an immense size. The largest we 

 have ever heard of is vouched for by Samuel C. Clarke, who says 

 that in 1840 he saw one at the mouth of the Calumet River, Mich- 

 igan, which had just been captured in a seine, that was six feet 

 long and weighed eighty pounds. The mouth would have ad- 

 mitted a man's leg ; it showed a perfect chevaiix de frise of teeth, 

 the canines at least an inch long ! It is almost black on the back, 

 greyish-yellow on the sides, and creamy white beneath, while the 

 whole body is beautiful with a wavy shading together of these 

 tints. Its weight and size are often colossal for a fresh water 

 game fish. It is long, slim, strong, and swift, and in every way 

 formed for the life it leads — that of a fierce and dauntless ma- 

 rauder. 



Mr. Irving L. Beman, in Forest and Sti-eani, gives the follow- 

 ing sketch of the mascalonge, which is by long odds the best that we 

 ever saw published : — " It is difficult to imagine a more ferocious 



