e water,
devouring without mercy everything smaller than itself; though its
favorite food is the white-fish, which, perhaps, accounts for the
superior flavor of this huge pike, which is one of the very best of
fresh-water fishes.

Another excellent fish for the table is the Pike-Perch, (_Lucio-Perca_)
or Glass-Eyed Pike, from his large, brilliant eyes. In Ohio, it is
called the salmon, and by the Canadians the pickerel, while, with
singular perversity, they persist in calling our pickerel a pike. It is
a very firm, well-flavored fish, weighing from two to ten pounds, and is
found in all the Great Lakes.

Professor Agassiz was the first to describe a large and valuable species
of pike, which he found in Lake Superior,--the Northern Pike (_Esox
Boreus_). This is the most common species of pike in the St. Lawrence
basin, though usually confounded with the common pickerel (_Esox
Reticulatus_). It grows to the size of fifteen or twenty pounds, and is
a better table-fish than _Esox Reticulatus_. It may be distinguished by
the rows of spots sides, of a lighter color than the ground upon which
they are arranged. It differs from the Muskelunge in having the lower
jaw full of teeth; whereas in the Muskelunge the anterior half of the
lower jaw is toothless.

All the streams which empty into Lake Superior, those of the north shore
of Lake Huron, the west shore of Lake Michigan as far as Lake Winnebago,
and all the streams of Lake Ontario, contain the Speckled Trout (_Salmo
Fontinalis_); while they are not found in the streams on the southern
coasts of Lake Michigan, or (so far as we know) in the streams of Lake
Erie. What can determine this limitation of the range of the species? It
cannot be latitude, since trout are found in Pennsylvania and Virginia.
It is not longitude, since they occur in the head-waters of the Iowa
rivers. So Professor Agassiz found that Lake Superior contained species
which were not to be found in the other lakes, and that the other lakes,
again, contained species which did not occur in Lake Superior. He says,
in his work on Lake Superior,

"It is the great question of the unity or plurality of creations; it is
not less the question of the origin of animals from single pairs or in
large numbers; and, strange to say, a thorough examination of the fishes
of Lake Superior, compared with those of the adjacent waters, is likely
to throw more light upon such questions, than all traditions, however
ancient, ho