320 GAME FISH OF NORTH AMERICA. 



are making their spawning beds. They are not often taken of a 

 weight exceeding ten pounds, but Dr. Bull is said to have taken 

 one in >he Kentucky River which weighed fifty pounds, and Dr. D. 

 C. Estes, of Lake City, Minnesota, has the lower jaw of one which 

 he caught in Lake Pepin that weighed forty pounds. Its largest 

 ^eeth were about one inch in length. Dr. Estes, who has studied 

 the habits of this fish very carefully, writes : 



" The habits of this fish seem to be well known to most writers, 

 but lam persuaded that with this as with some others, their habits 

 differ somewhat in different waters. All agree that they spawn in 

 April, but I have known them to spawn in this lake as early as the 

 fifteenth of March ; I think, however, this is not always the case. 

 They choose for their beds clean sandy (not gravelly) bottoms in 

 shallow water, from two to six feet deep. As soon as the lake 

 freezes over they commence looking for suitable spavming grounds, 

 and having once selected, and " pre-empted " them, there they 

 remain until the spawning season is over. This is a singular and 

 interesting fact, and one of which I have not the least doubt.- The 

 pickerel is their great enemy, and sometimes succeeds in "jump- 

 ing " their claims. The spawning grounds here are as well known 

 to me and other observers as the position in the heavens of the 

 north star. These fish are taken very late in autumn, but never 

 on the spawming grounds until the lake is frozen over. You may 

 visit these grounds one day and not discover a single fish, but 

 should the lake freeze over the same night, then the next day, if 

 the ice is sufBciently strong to hold you, you may pay these grounds 

 a visit and find plenty of pike-perch. This I have known to be 

 the case time and again. And I know that they remain right here, 

 fighting off every other fish, except the pickerel, who is their enemy 

 and master, until the spawn is deposited in the spring. Hence I 

 conclude that they select their spawning grounds as early as No- 

 vember and December. This singular fact has interested me very 

 much for years. As soon as the young brood is able to take care 

 of itself, it strikes for deeper water, remaining together as a family 

 and commingUng with others. For weeks they remain so closely 

 together iBat a half bushel would easily cover the entire brood. I 

 have seen thousands of these families so near together that many 

 would suppose them to be a regular school, yet every brood sep- 



