128 FISHES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

the pupil; the cheeks and opercles are more scaly than in the saugers; the soft dor- 
sal is nearly as long as the spinous; length of longest dorsal spine about half length 
of head. D. XIII, I, 21; A. II, 12 to 13; about 90 scales in lateral line, 10 above and 
19 below; the pectoral reaches to below the tenth spine of the dorsal; itis aslong as 
the ventral and one-halflength of head; the vent is under the fifth ray of the second 
dorsal. 
Color olivaceous, mingled with brassy; sides of the head vermiculated; the dor- 
sals, 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 pike-perch has received a great many common names. One of 
the most unsuitable is that of “Susquehanna salmon,” which is used in 
Pennsylvania. In the eastern states the species is styled the perch- 
pike or the pike-perch, glass-eye and wall-eyed pike. Inthe Great Lake 
region it is known as blue pike, yellow pike, green pike and grass pike. 
In the Ohio valley and western North Carolina it is the jack; in Lake 
Erie and Canada, the pickerel; in some parts of the Ohio valley it is the 
white salmon or jack salmon. The Cree Indians call it the okow and 
the French Canadians doré or picarel. Among the fur traders of 
British America it is called the horn-fish. 
The pike-perch or wall-eyed pike inhabits the Great Lake region and 
extends northward ‘into British America, where it has been recorded as 
far as fifty-eight degrees north by Dr. Richardson. It ranges south in 
the Mississippi valley to Arkansas, and in Atlantic streams to Georgia. 
This species is said to reach a weight of fifty pounds, but the average 
weight of the market specimens is less than five pounds. In the Sus- 
quehanna it occasionally reaches ten pounds or upwardin weight. The 
pike-perch feeds on the bottom upon other fishes, and has been charged 
even with destroying its own young. It prefers clear and rapid waters, 
and lurks under submerged logs and rocks from which it can readily 
dart upon its prey. Spawning takes place in April and May, and in 
Pennsylvania continues until June. Favorite spawning localities are 
on sandy bars in shallow water. The period of hatching varies from 
about fourteen to thirty days, depending upon the temperature of the 
water. The eggs vary from about seventeen to twenty-five to the inch, 
and a single female has been estimated to contain from two hundred 
thousand to three hundred thousand. In a state of nature only a small 
percentage of the eggs are hatched out; the greater portion are driven 
upon the lake shores by storms and devoured by fishes upon the spawn- 
ing beds. The number of pike-perch annually hatched by artificial 
methods is enormous. This advance is due to improvements in the 
treatment of adhesive eggs. Formerly these were hatched by placing 
them on glass plates, to which they readily adhere. Recently it has 
been found that the sticky substance can be washed off the eggs, after 
which they are placed in jars and hatched like eggs of the shad and 
white fish. Pennsylvania distributed twelve millions of the fry in its 
eastern waters in 1889, and has greatly increased the distribution since 
that time. 
