MILNER FISHERIES OF THE GREAT LAKES. 43 



The enemies with which they would have to contend are probably 

 few. The white-fish lives in the vicinity of their spawning-beds, and 

 as it is known to be a spawn-eater, it probably makes food to some 

 extent of the eggs of the siscowet, though in the. early days of Sep- 

 tember, when we had opportunity to exauiine the white-fishs' stomachs, no 

 eggs w^ere noticed. The food of the Cottoid we were unable to learn, as 

 the only specimens we obtained were from the stomachs of the siscowet, 

 and nearly digested. It is quite possible the eggs form iiart of its food. 



One external parasite was found to be numerous, a Lerueau, and the 

 Intestines weie generally infested with tape-worms in abundance. 



22. — The ^^':BITE-FISH, Coregonus alhus, Les. 



(22 a.) General considerations, — The species of the genus Coregonus are 

 widely distributed through all the northern regions of both hemispheres, 

 from about 46° latitude in the Old World and 41° 30' in America, to the 

 Arctic seas. They are the most extensively used of all fresh-water food- 

 fishes, unless it be the carp of China or the genus Salmo. . 



They inhabit all the deeper lakes in the regions referred to, the rivers 

 of the more northern latitudes, and some of the species, if not anadro- 

 mous, live indifferently in either the rivers or the sea. Specimens from 

 Hudson's Baj^ are in the possession of the Smithsonian Institution, and 

 in Pallas's Zoographia Rosso -Asiatica several species of the Coregoni are 

 described as ascending the rivers from the sea. They have been a most 

 extensive food-resource to the Indians, pioneers, trappers, and hunters 

 of the vicinity of the great lakes, and throughout British America and 

 Alaska. The statistics already given indicate the extent of their use in 

 the older and more thickly populated region of the country. 



The white-fish has been known since the time of the earliest explor- 

 ers as pre-eminently a fine-flavored fish. In fact there are few table- 

 fishes its equal. The testimony of very many summer travelers, this 

 season, on Lake Superior, from Eastern States gave preference to the 

 white-fish over the shad, both for flavor and its almost entire freedom 

 from bones. To be appreciated in its fullest excellence, it should be 

 taken fresh from the lake and broiled. Father Marquette, Charlevoix, 

 Sir John Richardson, explorers who for months at a time had to depend 

 on the white-fish for their staple article of food, bore testimony in their 

 writings to the fact that they never lost th«ir relish for it, and deemed 

 it a special excellence that the appetite never became cloyed with it. 



The fact that the white-fish is loth to take the hook is sufficient to 

 prevent much interest in it from a large class of people. There^is dan- 

 ger, in the work of fish-culture in this country, of conceding too much 

 importance to this point in the habits of a fish. The fish-interest of the 

 country has a much larger stake in the protection and increase of the 

 staple-food fishes than in the game-fishes simply as such; although it 

 might readily be acknowledged that among all other sporting recrea- 

 tions angling was the most sensible. Seth Green, in his magnificent 



