i 26 The Grayling and the Smelt 



pan-fish in British Columbia. The writer has had considerable 

 experience with it, broiled and fried, in its native region, and 

 has no hesitation in declaring it to be the best-flavored food- 

 fish in American waters. It is fat, tender, juicy, and richly 

 flavored, with comparatively few troublesome bones. It does 

 not, however, bear transportation well. The Indians in Alaska 

 bury the eulachon in the ground in great masses. After the 

 fish are well decayed they are taken out and the oil pressed 

 from them. The odor of the fish and the oil is then very offensive, 

 less so, however, than that of some forms of cheese eaten by 

 civilized people. 



The capelin (Mattotus villosus} closely resembles the eula- 

 chon, differing mainly in its broader pectorals and in the peculiar 

 scales of the males. In the male fish a band of scales above 



FIG. 85. Capelin, Mallotus villosus L. Crosswater Bay. 



the lateral line and along each side of the belly become elongate, 

 closely imbricated, with the free points projecting, giving the 

 body a villous appearance. It is very abundant on the coasts 

 of Arctic America, both in the Atlantic and the Pacific, and is 

 an important source of food for the natives of those regions. 



This species spawns in the surf, and the writer has seen 

 them in August cast on the shores of the Alaskan islands (as at 

 Metlakahtla in 1897), living and dead, in numbers which seem 

 incredible. The males are then distorted, and it seems likely 

 that all of them perish after spawning. The young are 

 abundant in all the northern fiords. Even more inordinate 

 numbers are reported from the shores of Greenland. 



The capelin seems to be inferior to the eulachon as a food- 

 fish, but to the natives of arctic regions in both hemispheres it 

 is a very important article of food. Fossil capelin are found 



