38 FISHES or THE CONNECTICUT LAKES. 



12. Round Whitefish. Coregonus quadrilaferall'^ Richardson. 



I'ljltO VI. 



Head 4.G7 in length without caudal ; depth 4.67 ; eye 4.60 in head ; snout 3.53 ; 

 maxillary bone 5.11 ; dorsal 11 ; anal 11 ; scales 10-S3-8. 



Head sharp, upper profile strongly curved downward to snout; snout beak- 

 like, sharp, compressed, projecting; mouth small; distance from tip of snout to 

 posterior extremity of maxillary 4.60 in head; maxillary not reaching front of 

 eye, mandible 2.87; lower jaw included; eye large; iuterorbital moderate, 3.S3 

 in head ; body fusiform, caudal peduncle rather slender ; pectoral moderately 

 long, pointed, 1.31 in head; dorsal moderate, first rays longest; 1.43 in head, 

 when depressed scarcely reaching tips of the last ray ; margin straight when 

 spread, base 2.09 in head ; anal falcate, first rays longest, 1.76 in head, tip 

 when depressed extending considerably beyond tip of last rays, base 2.42 in 

 head ; caudal forked. 



Top of head and back grayish olive; sides and belly silvery and white; 

 caudal dusky, other fins pale ; pectoral tipped with dusky. Description from a 

 male specimen 10.41 inches long from northern Maine, November, 1901. Lower 

 fins of males reddish in life during breeding season. 



In this region distinguished from all other fishes but the smelt and salmon 

 family by the presence of the fatty or adipose fin on upper part of tail; from 

 all other members of the salmon family except other whiteflshes by its plain 

 coloration ; from other whitefishes by its small mouth and " bill "-like snout 

 and fusiform body ; from the smelt by its small toothless mouth. 



" Billfish " seems to be a local name for this fish restricted to First 

 Connecticut Lake, applied because of its compressed snout, which gives 

 it a beak or " bill "-like appearance. It is one of the whitefishes and 

 is known in the books as " round whitefish " in allusion to its spindle 

 or fusiform shape in contradistinction to the compressed or later- 

 ally flattened form of the other species. In Maine it is called the 

 " chiven " or " chivy," a corruption and transappellation of chevaine, 

 the French name for the chub. In some parts of Xew York it is 

 called the " frost fish," and " menominee " is an aboriginal name. It 

 seldom attains a w^eight of much over a pound and the average 

 weight is considerably less. 



The round whitefish is widely distributed in northern regions, 

 ranging from New Brunswick through New Hampshire, northern 

 Vermont, and the Great Lakes, northward to Labrador and north- 

 westward to Alaska. It was described by Prescott in 1851 from Lake 

 Winnepesaukee, under the name Coregonvf^ Nov-Anglim^ " shad- 

 waiter," or " New England whitefish." It doubtless occurs in other 

 New Hampshire waters. It has been reported from First Connecticut 

 Lake under the name of " billfish." In the New Hampshire Fish and 

 Game Report for 1892, page 90, it is recorded from Connecticut 

 Lakes as foUow^s: "They [Connecticut Lakes] are well stocked with 

 minnows and small whitefish {Coregomis quadrilateralis) ^ known 

 locally as ' billfish.' " Its occurrence in the other Connecticut Lakes 

 could not be learned of, though there is a reliable report of its capture 

 this year in Main Inlet by hook and line at the mouth of Coon Brook. 



