The pickerel may also be taken by still-fishing from a boat with the live minnow or frog. On open water, a very successful way is trolling with a small spoon and single hook, or a dead minnow. For these methods the reader is referred to pike or black-bass fishing on previous pages. I have found the pickerel as far south as eastern Florida, where it is known as "pike," though it is rarely met with, and owing to its rarity is held in pretty fair esteem as a game-fish. In the marshes and rice ditches of South Carolina, and some sluggish streams of south-east Georgia, it is rather more plentiful, though usually of inferior size and dusky coloration. I once caught several on the Cooper River in South Carolina when fishing with very light tackle for "bream," which were unusually active and strong, and which impressed me as entitled to a better reputation as a game-fish than is commonly accorded to it by anglers. On the whole, the eastern pickerel is not half a bad fish, as English anglers would say. One might go farther and fare worse. THE WESTERN PICKEREL (_Esox vermiculatus_) The western pickerel was first described by Le Sueur from the Wabash River. He named it _vermiculatus_, owing to the "wormlike" appearance of its markings. He collected it about 1818, but his description was not published until 1846. It inhabits the Mississippi Valley, south to Arkansas and Mississippi, and the tributaries of Lakes Erie and Michigan. It is not found east of the Alleghanies. It is formed on the same general lines as the other members of the pike family, but is rather more slender and rounder, with a shorter head, proportionally, but a larger eye. Its color is olive-green, or grayish green, darker on the back, and belly white. The sides are covered with many dark curved streaks, inextricably mixed, or forming reticulations. The coloration is quite variable in different waters. A dark vertical bar is usually present below the eye; the sides of the head are variegated. It is common in the grassy streams of the Middle West and weedy bayous of the South-west, never exceeding a foot in length. The late Dr. Elisha Sterling, of Cleveland, Ohio, once sent me a plaster cast of one not more than eight inches in length, with the ovaries exposed, showing the ripe ova. It is not of much importance as a game-fish or as a food-fish. It spawns in early spring, and feeds on small fish, frogs, and tadpoles. It may be fished for in the same way, and with the same tackle as recommended for crappies on a previous page. THE BANDED PICKEREL (_Esox americanus_) The banded pickerel, Long Island pickerel, or brook pickerel, as it is variously known, was one of the first of its family to be recognized. It was described by Gmelin, in 1788, from Long Island. New York. He named it _americanus_, or "American pike," as a variety of the European _Esox lucius_.