630 Bulletin 47, United States National Museum. 



Esox oMensis,* KIRTLAND, Proc. Cleveland Academy Nat. Science, February 7, 1854, 85, Mahon- 



ing River. 

 Represented in the head waters of the Mississippi and its tributaries by 



925b. LUCIUS MASQUINONGY IMMACULATUSf (Garrard). 



(GREAT NORTHERN PIKE.) 



Body unspotted, or with vague, dark cross shades ; tail a little more 

 slender and fins a little higher than in the spotted or lake muskallunge. 

 Lakes and rivers of Wisconsin and Minnesota, locally abundant, (iwmac- 

 ulatus, unspotted.) 

 Esox immaculatiis, GARRARD MS.; noticed in different fishing journals; Eagle Lake, northern 



Wisconsin. 

 Esox masquinongy immaculatus, JORDAN, Man. Vert., Ed. 5, 89, 1888. 



Family XCII. PCECILIID^E.J 



(THE KlLLIFISHES.) 



Body oblong or moderately elongate, compressed behind, depressed 

 forward, covered with rather large cycloid scales, which are adherent and 



* We arc indebted to Mr. Barton A. Bean for the following copy of Kirtland's description : 



"IV. Esox ohiensis, KIRTLAND: From a very perfect stucco cast and a dessicated head of a 

 specimen taken in the Mahouing, a tributary of the Ohio River, it ia evident that this species is 

 distinct from any of the preceding. Its contour is more regular, oval, and elliptical than that of 

 the E. estor and less regular than that of the E. nobilis. The head is rather small, fusiform and 

 attenuated, and its vertical measurement through the eye proportionately less than in any other 

 species. Caudal fin emarginate and falcate more acutely than the Eslor. The color of the back 

 greenish brown; sides lighter, but shaded with brown; underneath white. Total length 30 

 inches; head 7%; vertical line through the eye, from frontal surface to bottom of lower jaw 2% 

 inches. Thia species sometimes attains 31% pounds weight." 



f "This is the fish that .has just claims to the name of The Great Northern Pike, as there is 

 abundant and unquestionable testimony of enormous size, ranging from 40, 75, 80, and 110 

 pounds. The habitat of this fish is the waters of the Mississippi system, and it has been well 

 known since the earliest settlement of the West under various local names, as Chautauqua 

 Lake Pike, Alleghany River Pike, Muskingum River Pike, Kentucky River Pike, Rock River 

 (Illinois) Pike, and is now found in the greatest abundance and of the largest size, in the clear, 

 cold lakes of the Wisconsin and Minnesota pineries, at the heads of the tributaries of the Mis- 

 sissippi. In early days, before the streams were rendered turbid by the washing of lands in cul- 

 tivation, this fish was more abundant in Lake Pepin than it now is, but a few are taken occa- 

 sionally. One of 75 pounds was taken in those early days by reputable citizens still living at 

 Lake City. One of 40 pounda was taken two years ago by a man who fishes for the market, 

 and numbera have been taken ranging from 2 pounds to 20 pounds. This fish is generally found 

 either in these pinery streams or near the mouth of them in the Mississippi River." (General 

 Israel Garrard, in a letter dated June 1, 1886, Frontenac, Minnesota.) 



J Concerning the name to be given to this family Dr. Gill remarks : 



" In my Families and Subfamilies of Fishes ' (1893, No. 133) I have adopted Pcedliidee instead 

 of CyprinodontidsR for the family at present generally known by the latter name. 



" It is quite true that Professor Agassiz was the first to recognize the family so called, but he 

 simply gave the plural form of Cyprinodontes, and not a name with the patronymic suffix now 

 almost universally used to denote families, and he did not define it, but simply gave it to the 

 residuum left after denning the Cyprini. Little later Bonaparte gave a regular family name 

 (Pceciliidije) derived from the earliest established name of a genus of the family and that name 

 was several times employed by him and others while the name Cyprinodontes remained in abey- 

 ance ; he also regularly defined it. The first regular use of the latter name with a patronymic 

 suffix (Cyprinodontidfe) was by Sir John Richardson in 1856. 



"Another objection to the name Cyprinodontidse which may reconcile us to its abandonment is 

 that it expresses a taxonomic falsehood and is even now constantly misleading persons. In the 

 part of the great 'New English Dictionary,' lately published (v. 2, p. 1306), a ' Cyprinodont' is 

 defined as 'a malacopterygious fish of the family Cyprinodontidse, of which the typical genus is 

 Cyprinodon ; they differ from the Cyprinids in having the jaws more projecting and toothed.' 

 In the recent Manual of Moreau (1892, p. 479), the ' Cyprino Jontides ' and ' Cyprinides ' are 

 approximated in an analytical table and simply contrasted on account of the presence of jaw 

 teeth ( machoires dentees ') in the former and the absence (machoires ' non dentees ') in the 

 latter. It certainly is time for trained ichthyologists to have learned that there is no affinity 

 between the two types, and that they differ so radically in all essential features of organization 

 that they should be referred to different orders. Yet Valenciennes, in the penultimate volume 

 of his great work (Hist. Nat. Poiss., xxi, p. 455), attempted to justify the retention of the 

 Cyprinodonts in the same family with the Cyprinids and their natural allies. The Cyprinodonts 

 or Pceciliids are really related to the Esocids and Umbrids, and to them they should be approxi- 

 mated iu the suborder Haplomi. " (Gill, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 1894, 115.) 



