NOTE ON THE GOLD-EYE, AMPHIODON ALOSOIDES KA 

 FINESQUE, OR ELATTONISTIUS CHRYSOPSIS (RICH- 

 ARDSON). 



By David Starr Jordan and William Francis Thompson, 



Of Stanford I r niversity, < 'alifornia. 



In the basin of Lake Winnipeg the fish known as the gold-eye lias 

 considerable value as an article of food. Smoked, it is fairly to be 

 called delicious, and as a pan-fish, although beset by small hones, its 

 flesh is excellent, scarcely inferior to that of the whitefish. It is 

 flaky, rather firm, and of good quality. According to Richardson, the 

 ''flesh is white, resembling that of the perch in flavor, but excelling 

 it in richness." The fish is bright silvery in life, the eyes being, as 

 stated bv Richardson, of a bright "honev yellow," sussrestine the 

 name of gold-eye, universally given to the species by the fishermen 

 and fish dealers of Manitoba. 



The species was found by the International Fisheries Commission 

 to be abundant in Lake of the Woods, in the Red River of the North, 

 and in Lake Winnipeg. It is also said to abound in the lower Sas- 

 katchewan and Assiniboine, as well as in Lake Manitoba and other 

 lakes tributary to Lake Winnipeg. The moon-eye, Hiodon tergisus, 

 which is nowhere valued as food, is not found in the Winnipeg basin. 



Sir John Richardson gave the gold-eye the name of Hiodon chrij- 

 so])six, a his specimens being from Cumberland House on the lower 

 Saskatchewan, near Lake Winnipeg. 



Besides our specimens from the Winnipeg region, we have also ex- 

 amples from the White River at Gosport, Indiana, and from South 

 Loup River, Nebraska. Tn all these, the eye is still yellow, although 

 the specimens have been over twenty years in spirits. 



The illustration (fig. 1) representing a female specimen from Red 

 River of the North, at Winnipeg, is drawn by William S. Atkinson. 



As to the proper specific name for the gold-eye, and the genu- of 

 which it is the type, we are still somewhat in doubt. 



Rafinesque describes from the Falls of the Ohio a species he calls 



Amphiodon alosoides (misprinted alveoides), later called, by the same 

 writer, Hyodon amphiodon. This fish has much in common with the 

 gold-eye, and may be the same fish as supposed by Jordan and Ever- 



a Fauna Bor. Amer., L836, ]>. 232. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 38— No. 1 752. 

 Proc.N.M. vol. 38— 1 23 



