352 LAKE SUPERIOR. 



have endeavored to compare them by means of reduction, but I soon 

 perceived that I could not arrive in this way at a precise determina- 

 tion, especially as the proportions of the different regions of the figure 

 of Richardson do not fully agree with the measures which he gives of 

 them in the text. The formula of the fins which I have taken from 

 an individual of fourteen inches, is : 



Br. 6 ; D. Ill, 11 ; A. II, 10 ; C. 7, I, 9, 8, I, 6 ; V. 11 ; P. 16. 



The scales of the lateral line, though smaller than the adjacent 

 rows, do not appear to me so absolutely truncated as Dr. Richardson 

 expressly says they are in his species. Their size on the sides equals, 

 if it does not surpass, four-eighths of an inch, and on a surface of an 

 inch square we may count as many as eight. This fact has appeared 

 to me the most prominent. 



Richardson reports that when Cuvier sent him the specimens 

 which he had submitted to his examination, the label indicated that 

 he, (Cuvier,) had a related species from Lake Ontario, but we do 

 not find it mentioned by M. Valenciennes in the Histoire Naturelle 

 des Poissons. It is perhaps to this species of Lake Ontario that our 

 specimens ought to be referred. Sir John Richardson, having seen 

 recently the specimen described above, has himself offered doubts re- 

 specting its identity with his O. quadrilateralis. 



CYPRINOIDS. 



This is a numerous, but well circumscribed family, whose striking 

 peculiarities are very obvious. I am not aware that any of these fishes 

 have ever been noticed in the waters of the southern hemisphere ; 

 nor do they extend anywhere far beyond the limits of the temperate 

 zone, as it is well ascertained that they are most numerous in the 

 rivers and lakes of Central Europe and Central Asia and Northern 

 America. Indeed, it is so much their natural home, that they do not 

 seem to occur in the northernmost freshwater streams, nor any- 

 where in the tropics, except in very great altitudes, where recently 

 a few have been found in the Andes. The sea is almost entirely 

 destitute of fishes of this family ; a few species, hoAvever, occur in 

 brackish waters. 



The family of Cyprinoids affords another example of the fact, that 



