122 



REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



Fig. i. 

 Tart of Cheek and Gill Covers of a Mascalonge, 



the pike is mentioned when the law really refers to the pike-perch. A gentleman 

 asked some questions about the pike and I replied to him and told him that apparently 

 he was asking about the pike-perch, but he insisted that it was the pike. However, 

 when I asked if the fish had one or two dorsal fins he replied that it had two, which 



is characteristic of the pike-perch, and not of 

 the true pike. For the purpose of identification 

 three figures have been prepared showing the 

 characteristics that are constant in the mascalonge 

 (which is sometimes called a big pickerel and 

 great pike), the pike and the pickerel. 



Without regard to color or other markings, 

 each of the fishes named may be identified from 

 the peculiarity of scale formation shown in the 

 accompanying cuts. 



The mascalonge, the pike and the pickerel have each the same number of fins, 

 placed in the same position on each fish, as will be seen in the colored drawings in 

 this volume. The mascalonge has scales only on the upper part of cheek and gill 

 covers as shown in Fig. I. The fish may be the mascalonge from the St. Lawrence 

 River, with round brown spots on a light ground, or the mascalonge from Chautauqua 

 Lake with blotches or splashes of brown, or it may be without spots of any kind, 

 and it may be called Chautauqua pike, or Kentucky River or Muskingum River 

 pike, and yet it will be a mascalonge and have scales on cheek and opercula as shown 

 in Fig. i. 



The colored drawing is made from a Chautauqua Lake mascalonge, for that is 

 where the State hatches mascalonge, and this is the first time that a specimen has been 

 figured correctly. It was reported to me that some of the Chautauqua Lake masca- 

 longe were spotted like the St. Lawrence River fish, and I asked Superintendent Annin to 

 investigate the matter, and I quote from his letter reporting to me: "I am inclined 

 to think, and believe I am correct, that all the mascalonge of Chautauqua Lake are 

 marked in the same manner. I secured three specimens which our men thought were 

 the spotted variety, as they call it, and sent two of them to Dr. Bean, and he says 

 they are the same as he had last fall and the same as you have for the report. You 

 know that oftentimes you will find a fish coming out of the same lake, only from a 

 different bottom, which will be marked or colored differently, one from another. This, 

 I think, is the explanation of the reported difference in coloration of the Chautauqua 

 Lake mascalonge. The only round brown spots on the Chautauqua Lake fish are 

 those found near the tail and along the bell)' line." This to me is conclusive, although 

 I was informed in great detail that the fish of different ages or of different sexes have 



