124 



NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



sub-genera Alocephalus, Microstoma, Stomias, Chauliodus, and Salanx, contain 

 one, or, at most, two species each, and belong to the Mediterranean, with the excep- 

 tion, perhaps, of Salanx, whose habitat is not mentioned in the Regne Animal. 



[53.] 1. Esox lucius. (Linn.) The Common Pike. 



Family, Esocidae. Genus, Esox. Sub-genus, Esox, Cuvier. 

 Esox lucius, Auotorum. Richardson, Fr. Journ.,Tp. 716. 

 Eithinyoo-cannooshseoo. Cree Indians. Gedd, Scotis. Gedde, Danis. 



The true Pikes form the first division of the Linnean genus Esox. Their 

 slender intermaxillaries, armed with small pointed teeth, occupy two-thirds of the 

 border of the upper jaw : the labials which lie on the sides of the jaw are tooth- 

 less. The vomer, palate-bones, tongue, pharyngeals, and branchial arches, are 

 stuck full of teeth in card-like plates, and the sides of the lower jaw are armed with 

 a row of long pointed ones. The snout is oblong, obtuse, broad, and depressed : 

 the solitary dorsal is opposite to the anal. The stomach, wide and plaited, is con- 

 tinuous with a slender intestine, which is twice folded upon itself and has no cseca : 

 the air-bladder is very large. 



The Common Pike, a well-known inhabitant of the rivers and lakes of Europe 

 and northern Asia, and even of the Caspian Sea, exists also in the United States of 

 America, and in every piece of fresh water up to the arctic extremity of the con- 

 tinent ; but it has not been found on the islands of the Polar Sea, nor is it men- 

 tioned by Fabricius as a native of Greenland. As it takes a bait set under the ice 

 more readily than any other fish of the same districts, it forms an important 

 resource to the Indian hunter in the depth of winter, when the chase fails him. 

 In the summer it is occasionally shot while basking in shallow waters, but except 

 in very urgent cases, powder and ball are of too high value in the fur countries to 

 be thus expended. No quadruped, bird, or fish, that the pike can capture, seems 

 to be secure from its voracity, and even the spiny perch is an acceptable prey to 

 this water tyrant. The pike rarely weighs more than twelve pounds in the north- 

 ern parts of America. Our specimen, taken in Lake Huron, was submitted to 

 Cuvier's inspection, and it has also been carefully compared with English pike, 

 without any specific differences having been detected. 



