50 FISHES OF THE VICINITY OF NEW YORK 



the tip of the breast fin not far behind the head and is usually bordered 

 with black. That of the Common Eel begins much further back. The 

 Conger Eel is found only in salt water but the Common Eel in both salt 

 and fresh, penetrating to almost every little muddy pond or stream in the 

 interior of the country. It breeds, nevertheless, only in the deep sea, 

 and the young are at first flat, transparent and quite un-eel-like. In this 

 larval stage they reach a length of several inches, but as they approach 

 the coast all assume the cylindrical form of the adult eel, a change ac- 

 com[)anied by an actual shrinkage in size. These little eels, still trans- 

 parent, are very abundant in the weed of our bays at certain seasons. 

 The fact that eels do not breed in fresh water or even coastwise and 

 practically never are taken with roe in such localities, led to ancient 

 superstitions about their origin. One of the most widely accepted was 

 that they developed from horse-haii'S which had by chance fallen in 

 stagnant water, and the slender worms commonly found in such water 

 were looked upon as a transition stage. 



VI. Small Couslxs of the Pike 

 (Haplomi) 

 The Pikes are fresh-water fishes resembling the Carps in having a 

 single back fin of soft rays, but it is placed much further back. They 

 differ from the carps in having a large mouth with formidable teeth and 

 much finer scales than most of these. The\^ are elongate fishes, sel- 

 dom seen swimming actively about, which lie in wait for their prey. 

 Three species might be expected to occur in this vicinity but there seems 

 to be no satisfactory record within fifty miles of New York for the Pike 

 proper. It is a large species distributed in northern fresh waters of both 

 hemispheres and reaches a length of four feet. It is bluish or greenish 

 gray in color with paler spots. The cheeks are entirely scaly but the 

 lower half of the opercles is bare of scales, whereas the entire opercle as 

 well as the cheeks of the Banded Pickerel and Chained Pickerel are scaly. 

 The former is dark olive in color, the sides marked with about twenty 

 curved more or less vertical dark bars, and the lower fins often reddish 

 or yellowish. This is a small species rarely reaching a length of twelve 

 inches. It is quite abundant in lowland swamps and streams, especially 

 coastwise. The Chained Pickerel is greenish, generally rather pale with 

 many narrow dark streaks on the sides, mostly horizontal and forming 

 more or less of a net pattern. It reaches a length of two feet and is 

 numerous in clear fresh lakes, often lying motionless, balanced in the 

 water among the lily pads and weeds near shore, ready to dart on any 



