Fishes of the Western North Atlantic 557 



spectrum^ and ahbotti, with the European eperlanus, based on his comparison of smelts 

 from France with those from New York and from various localities in New England 

 (28: SSS)- ^^ ^" example of extreme subdivision of the smelts of the eastern Atlantic, 

 Europe, and the Arctic Ocean, it seems enough to cite the following names applied 

 by Berg (5: 132): Osmerus eperlanus eperlanus, northern Spain to Scandinavia and the 

 Baltic; O. eperlanus dentex. White Sea and Arctic coast; O. eperlanus eperlanus natio 

 ladogensis, Russian lakes; O. eperlanus morpha spirinchus, lakes of northern Europe; 

 and O. eperlanus dentex natio dvinensis morpha spirinchus^ lakes of the White Sea region 

 and Kola Peninsula. 



The differing views in this regard after 1895 seem not to have reflected any 

 extensive contributions to recorded fact until 1934, when Petrow showed (jj: 179, 182) 

 that smelts of the Arctic coasts of 



Eurasia and of the northwestern Table I. Osmems. Scales Penetrated by the Lateral Line in: 

 T, -r 1 1 1 1- A, 1 1 specimens, 14.C-174. mm SL, from Nova Scotia and New 



Pacinc have a larger number or ^ t ^ , < \ V/tr-v d _, /; c d • c 



6 Lngland {mordax), MCZ; c, 1 1, 72-206 mm, trom Benng Sea 



lateral-line scales (14-30) than (^^«/^;f), USNM; C, smelts from the White Sea, Arctic coast 

 smelts of Europe (4—14), that they of Siberia, and eastern Siberia, according to Petrov; D, 6, 67- 

 have somewhat larger teeth, and '74 mm, from northern Europe {eperlanus), MCZ; and E, 



" smelts rrom Russia (eperlanus), accordmg to retrow ijy)- 



that on the average they have a 



° A B C D E 



longer interspace between the bases „ , 



r, ,j ,r J ,. Scales 15-26 17-25 14-30 7-1 1 4-16 



or the rayed dorsal tin and adipose Extreme range . . "^ 14-3° ^ *^ 4-16 ^ 



fin. Consequently he recognized 



two subspecies, eperlanus and dentex, not three, as Berg had done {4: 100, 102). 



Unfortunately, Petrow did not extend his comparison in this regard to the smelts 

 of the western North Atlantic. But our own examination of the series listed (Tables i 

 and 11) has shown that in this respect mordax agrees more closely with dentex than with 

 eperlanus, a result at which Hubbs had already arrived from his study of the number 

 of gill rakers and the height of the anal fin {43: 52). It also appears that the contrast 

 in number of scales is a decidedly consistent one, although we have found nothing to 

 suggest that the western Atlantic, eastern Atlantic, and Bering Sea smelts differ signifi- 

 cantly one from another in any of the other features that seem the most likely to be 

 significant from the species standpoint among salmon-like fishes as a whole. 



If we can accept the number of lateral-line scales as our criterion, the smelts of the 

 western Atlantic are more closely related to the Arctic-North Pacific smelts than to the 

 European smelts, though the reverse might have been expected on purely geographic 

 grounds. And the separation between the two divisions seems sufficient to warrant the 

 recognition of two corresponding subspecies within the species eperlanus, but not of 

 three {eperlanus, mordax, and dentex), as by Wynne-Edwards {ll8: 17). Admittedly 

 the basis for this conclusion is so weak that future examination of more extensive series 

 of specimens from key localities may prove that it is not valid. But our provisional 

 adoption of it here (Key, p. 558) has at least the practical advantage of freeing us 

 from the need to expand the present account of the western Atlantic smelts to cover 

 the eastern Atlantic smelts in corresponding detail. 



