90 CHECK LIST OF THE 



thoracic I., 5; pectorals often very large; caudal, lunate, truncate or 

 rounded. Air bladder small and adherent ; often entirely wanting. Pyloric 

 caeca few. No subocular lamina of the suborbitals ; entopterygoid present. 

 Anterior vertebrae without transverse processes ; only the first pterygial 

 or actinost usually in contact with the coracoid ; sometimes a part of the 

 second also. The posterior processes of the premaxillaries are short; the 

 supraoccipital and parietal bones are short and confined to the back of the 

 skull ; parietal crests are absent, and the supraoccipital crest is very short, 

 not extending to the anterior extremity of the bone or even absent. 



GENUS STIZOSTEDION. (PICKEREL. PIKE PERCHES.) 



Body elongate, fusiform, the back broad; head subconical, long, 

 cheeks, opercles and top of head more or less scaly ; mouth large, the jaws 

 about equal ; premaxillaries protractile, little movable ; teeth in villiform 

 bands, the jaws and palatines with long, sharp canines ; gill rakers slen- 

 der, strong; gill membranes separate; preopercle serrated, the serrae 

 below turned forward ; opercle with one or more spines, terminations of 

 radiating striae, dorsal fins well separated, the first with twelve to fifteen 

 spines, the second with seventeen to twenty-one soft rays, last dorsal 

 spine not erectile, bound down by membranes; anal spines two, slender, 

 closely appressed to the soft rays, which are rather long, eleven to four- 

 teen in number ; ventral fins well separated, the space between them equal 

 to their base, ventral spine slender, closely appressed to the soft rays ; 

 scales small, strongly ctenoid ; lateral line continuous ; branchiostegals 

 seven ; pseudobranchiae well developed ; pyloric caeca three to seven. 

 Large carnivorous fishes of the fresh waters of North America. 



SUBGENUS STIZOSTEDION. 



(94) Yellow Pickerel. Pike-Perch. Dore. 



(Stizostedion vitreum.) 



Body long and moderately deep, its depth varying with age ; head 

 long ; eye rather large ; lower jaw slightly projecting ; the maxilla reach- 

 ing beyond the pupil. The soft dorsal is nearly as long as the spinous. 



D. XIII., I., 21 ; A. II., 12 to 13. Scales, 10-90-19. 



Colour, olivaceous mottled with brassy ; sides of the head vermicu- 

 lated ; the dorsals, caudal and pectoral with bands ; those of the dorsals 

 and caudal not continuous ; sides with about seven oblique dark bands, 

 differing in direction ; a jet black blotch on the membrane behind the last 

 spine of the dorsal. 



The Yellow Pickerel is found in all the larger bodies of water through- 

 out Ontario, more particularly in the Great Lakes and the rivers falling 

 into them. Its spawning time is in early spring, when it runs on to 

 gravelly or sandy bars or even up rivers for the purpose of depositing its 



