4ft 

 152 AMERICAN PISHES. 



whicli are furnislied with several rows of long, powerful, and exceed- 

 ingly sharp, awl-shaped teeth, the points curving slightly forward. 

 The vomer and palatine bones are covered with card-like clumps of 

 spiny teeth, as are the base of the tongue, and the pharyngealbones. 

 The tongue itself is soft. 



The lower jaw is considerably longer than the upper ; it is armed 

 for something less than half its length with very powerful recurved 

 fangs, the two largest being in front, a little posterior to the tip of the 

 tongue. Beyond these, the lower jaw is toothless, curved upwards, 

 with sharp, horny, beak-lijie; ec^es ; and in these points, paj'ticularly, 

 is it distinpt fi;om the follo\p(ng species.. 



Of the gill-covers, the preoperoulum ig, nearly vertical, and but 

 slightly curved, the operculum much higher than it is broad, and 

 nearly four times as high as the suboperotJum, which is slightly round- 

 ed posteriorly. The branchipstegous rays are eighteen in number. 



The body and head are quadrangular, flattened above, and much 

 compressed at the sides. The dorsal fin is directly above the anal, 

 the caudal powerful and deeply forked. 



The fins, according to Professor Agassiz' singularly precise mode pf 

 enumeration, contain— the dorsal, twenty-two fin rays ; anal, twenty ; 

 ventral, thirteen; pectoral, eighteen. The main part of the caudal 

 fin is divided into two somewhat unequal lobes, containing, the upper, 

 nine ; the under; eight fin-rays ; while above and below the two larger 

 lateral rays there are nine smaller rays. 



In color, it differs from the Northern Pickerel in having the general 

 tint of the body lighter than the markings. The back and upper part 

 of the sides are dark, changing from greenish blue to bluish gray, on 

 the sides, whigh are irregularly dashed with darker spots and splashes. 

 When* ^exposed . to a strong light, every scale reflects bright colors, 

 which vary as the fish is moved ; but there is no fixed pale mark on 

 the tip of the scales, as in the succeeding species. 



The Mascalpnge, which owes its name to the formation of the head 

 — masque aUemge, long face or snout, Canadian French — ^but which 

 has been translated from dialect to dialect, maskinonge, mii^calunge, 

 and muscalinga, until every trace of true d^j-iyation has been lost;, is 

 said to be much more common in Lakes Erieiajod Ontario than in the 

 more northern waters of Canada ; but this will, 1 fancy, prove to be 



