146 AMERICAN FISHES. 



The snout was sharper and longer, and the labial plates shallower in 

 proportion to their length. 



The branchiostegous rays were eight on one side, nine on the 

 other ; the dorsal fin-rays thirteen, the pectoral seventeen, the yentral 

 eleven, the anal eleven, and the caudal twenty-two 



I examined the mouth as minutely as I could without the aid of 

 a glass, and neither by my eye nor my finger could I detect the ves- 

 tige of a tooth on the maxillaries, intermaxillaries, tongue, palate, or 

 vomer, the latter parts being of a pearly whiteness, and as smooth as 

 glass. 



The pharyngeal bones were also toothless, but the branchial arches 

 were armed with erect rakers, precisely as described in the last- 

 named spscios. 



The colors of this fish were the most beautiful, lustrous, and bril- 

 liant, that I ever witnessed — the back, of a rich iridescent blue, 

 changing to greenish ; the sides, cheeks and gill-covers, glittering like 

 mother-of-pearl, and the belly sparkling like molten silver ; the fins, 

 of a bluish green ; the caudal very deeply forked ; the lateral line 

 nearly straight. 



This exquisite and beautiful fish, so far as is known, is found only 

 in the Otsego lake, the head waters of the Susquehanna river ; but it 

 would be very curious to compare it with the so-called White-Fish of 

 Chatauque lake, a locale very similar to the Otsego, equally cut off 

 from communication with other waters, and at about an equal eleva- 

 tion above tida-water. I greatly suspoct that the Coregoni of these 

 two mountain lochs would prove identical. 



The habits of tlie Otsego Lavaret are but little known. It is gre- 

 garious, however, and rushes in vast shoals, early in spring, to 

 all the shallow w;iters and shores of the lake, for a few days, during 

 which he is taken in vast numbers ; after that time, he retires to the 

 coldest depths of the lakes, and is seen no more until autumn, when 

 he again makes his appearance for the purpose, it is supposed, of 

 spawning, although the period at which the ova are deposited does 

 not appear to be clearly ascertained, nor whether the spawning-beds 

 are in the shoal waters of the lake, or at the mouth of its feeders. 



It is lamentable to think, though but too true, that through the 

 wanton improvidence of the early settlers, who dealt with this delicious 



