The banded or American pickerel (_Esox americanus_) has, like the other true pickerels, both the cheeks and the gill-covers entirely covered with scales; it has 12 or 13 branchiostegal rays; coloration dark green, sides with many distinct black curved transverse bars; a black bar below the eye, and one from the snout through the eye to the gill-cover. It is found only east of the Alleghanies. THE MASCALONGE (_Esox nobilior_) The specific name _nobilior_, long current for the mascalonge, and the one based on its earliest accurate description, was conferred by Rev. Zadoc Thompson in 1849 in "Notes on Certain Vermont Fishes," in the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, Vol. III, published July 18, 1849, and later he described it fully in the "History of Vermont," 1853, Part I. It is an excellent and appropriate name, and one that has become familiar to anglers. I have retained it, inasmuch as it was discarded, I think, for a very insufficient reason. The specific name _masquinongy_, which has recently been given to this species in the books, is supposed to have been given to the mascalonge by Dr. Mitchill in 1824. His description, however, cannot now be found. It is alluded to by De Kay in his "Fishes of New York," in 1842, who gives its reference as "Mirror, 1824, page 297"; but I have searched for it in vain, as have others. De Kay merely says: "According to Mitchill, who describes a specimen 47.0 long and weighing thirty pounds, the fin rays are as follows: 'D. 21; P. 14; V. 11; A. 17; C. 26.' But this radial formula is just as applicable to Richardson's _E. lucius_: 'D. 20; P. 16; A. 18,' also given by De Kay." The size and weight of the alleged specimen of Mitchill would seem to indicate the mascalonge, but the great northern pickerel, _Esox lucius_, occasionally reaches a like size and weight. I once caught one weighing twenty-five pounds in northern Wisconsin, and saw several a little heavier, one of fully twenty-eight pounds. Dr. Kirtland, in 1838, had, previous to De Kay, applied Mitchill's name _masquinongy_ to a specimen from Lake Erie, and it is upon this evidence, principally, that this name has been adopted as the specific title of the mascalonge. But afterward Dr. Kirtland used Thompson's name _nobilis_ (meaning _nobilior_) and Le Sueur's name _estor_ for the mascalonge. He also subsequently described the mascalonge from Lake Erie as _atromaculatus_, and one from the Mahoning River, Ohio, as _ohiensis_. From this it would appear that Dr. Kirtland, although a good naturalist in his day, was not at all clear in his estimation of the mascalonge.