November, 189S.] 257 



RECENT ADDITIONS TO THE LIST OF IRISH 



FISHES. 



BY ERNEST W. I.. HOLT. 



Salmonid^. 

 Argentina silns, Ascan. The Great Silver Smelt. 



A fine specimen, i6j inches in length, was landed at 

 Plymouth on the 15th June, 1898. It had been trawled, in 

 company with others, at a depth of 74 fathoms, 75 miles true 

 S. of the Old Head of Kinsale. Some of the fish were eaten 

 by the crew of the trawler, and pronounced of excellent 

 quality. 



Hitherto A. silns has only been known as an inhabitant of 

 rather deep water, 100 fathoms and less, on the northern 

 coast of Europe, from Norway to Jutland, and from the 

 Atlantic coast of N. America, The specimen recorded from 

 the Scottish coast under this name by Edward subsequently 

 proved to belong to the smaller species, A. sphyrcena, Linn., 

 which may be called the Small Silver Smelt. The latter was 

 found, during the Ro3''al Dublin Society's survey on the west 

 coast, to be by no means rare in deep water. It is impossible 

 to decide whether the occurrence of A. silus in our seas should 

 be considered normal or exceptional, since the weather inter- 

 fered with subsequent trawling operations in the same locality 

 and no earlier evidence, positive or negative, is available. 

 Our scanty records of its occurrence, and the nature of the 

 food which I found in the stomach of the specimen which 

 forms the subject of the present note (see Jourii. M. B. Assoc, 

 n.s., vol. v., 1898), w^ould appear to indicate that it haunts 

 the lower strata of the water in its adult condition, and is 

 therefore unlikely to be directly dependent on the influence 

 of surface currents. It is, however, quite possible that the 

 larvae are pelagic and occur even at the surface, as has been 

 shown by Collett to be the case with the Norway "Haddock," 

 Sebastes norvegicics, a form which agrees with A. silus in its 

 adult distribution. Day ("Fishes of Gt. Brit," vol. ii.), describes 

 and figures A. sphyrccna and briefly indicates the distinguishing 



A 



