^^^ On the Clmsificaiion of Fishes. 



Here also there is opportunity for careful examination by the 

 Canadian student, as accurate descriptions of the different species 

 are very much needed. Agassiz has recently given a description 

 of two species from Lake Superior, with which comparison may 

 be instituted in the study of specimens, and order be brought out 

 of the present confusion. There is a great multiplicity of species 

 of the genus Leuciscus ; how many of tliem will be found in our 

 waters I am not prepared to say : doubtless there is the Black- 

 nosed Dace, Leuciscus atronasus, in many places called the Brook 

 Minnow, the Kedfin or Rough-head, Leuciscus cornutus, and the 

 Shining Dace, Leuciscus nitidus. Indeed I am quite sure I have 

 seen the two latter in the streams in the neio-hborhood of Lake 

 Memphremagog. Agassiz describes two new species from Lake 

 Superior, closely resembling Leuciscus cornutus^ which he calls 

 Leuciscus frontalis and Leuciscus gracilis^ and probably other 

 species will be found in our streams and lakes by the careful 

 i^aturalist. 



The Pickerel family, LJsocidce, seems to be at home in Canadian 

 waters, and the careful student will be very likely to meet with 

 new and undescribed species of the genus Esox, to which belongs 

 the great Mascalonge, LJsox estor, the common Pickerel, LJsox 

 reticulatus, the Northern Pickerel, LJsox Boreus. I have been 

 informed by an enthusiastic student of nature, who has the means 

 of knowing, that the Ojibway Indians call our Esox estor the 

 Maskinonge, whence it has been corrupted into Mascalonge. 



The Salmon family, Salmonid^, are peculiar to the northern 

 temperate regions ; and between the great lakes and Arctic seas 

 will be found several genera, each of which includes a number of 

 ipecies. The noble Salmon is the type of this family, to which 

 an article has been devoted in a previous number, and to the 

 same genus belong that speckled beauty, the Brook Trout, 

 Salmo fontinalis, and the great Lake Trout, Salmo namaycush, 

 the Siskawitz, Salmo siskawitz, recently discovered by Agassiz 

 in Lake Superior, the Salmon Trout, Salmo trutta, which is 

 found only in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and in the estuaries 

 of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and the Masamacush, Salmo 

 ILoodii. To this family belongs the genus Coregonus, the 

 species of which fall so naturally into two groups that Agassiz 

 proposes to divide them into two genera, calling the group which 

 have the lower jaw longer than the upper Argtrosomus, and for 

 that which has the upper jaw longer than the lower retain the 



