Among the Crscoes of Lake Geneva. 
ferentiations of the species of white- 
fish: . 
The commercial whitefish (Coregonus 
clupetformis) has a blunt snout, eleven 
rays in the dorsal and a like number in 
the anal fin, and is usually of pale 
whitish color, not silvery. The length 
of its head is about one one-sixth of the 
length of the body, not including the 
caudal fin. The measurement of the 
head is from the snout along the 
cheeks to the extremity of the gill 
cover. The cisco,. like all other so- 
called ‘‘lake herrings,” including the 
moon-eye or cisco of Lake Michigan, 
has rather a long head, an average of 
ten raysin first dorsal, and about twelve 
in the anal fin; it has bluish tints above 
the lateral line, with silver sheen on the 
sides. Our illustrations of the cisco 
and the commercial whitefish will aid 
all interested in distinguishing one 
from the other, and the pen drawing 
of the Rocky mountain whitefish 
will at once show our Lake Geneva 
friends the striking physical differences 
between their clipper-built beauty and 
the coarser fish of running waters. 
_ Of the different species of ciscoes or 
‘‘herrings,’’ in number about ten or 
eleven (now undergoing classification re- 
vision), we have killed four, viz: the 
cisco of Lake Geneva, the whitefish of 
the Yellowstone and Gallatin, the 
whitefish of the Ausable river and of 
Lake Huron, and that of Lake Michi- 
gan. We have eaten of all of them, 
and in no respects did we find them 
equal in flavor to the cisco of Lake 
Geneva. Nor did they possess its vivid 
coloration, which is a metallic blue shad- 
ing into green with rose and violet tints, 
nor were they so round in body or so 
symmetrical or clipper-built in shape. 
Again, every specimen—and they num- 
bered hundreds—which I examined of 
247 
the latter named fish, ran almost uni- 
form in size, from ten to eleven inches 
—none of them larger. The ciscoes of 
Lake Michigan and the other large 
lakes are of various sizes and weights, 
some of them being over twenty inches, 
and of two or more pounds in weight. 
This irregularity in size is particularly 
noticed in the whitefish of running 
waters, especially in the rivers Yellow- 
stone and Gallatin, where we have 
caught them of inconstant sizes and 
weights, from a half to two pounds. 
The manner in which the resident 
anglers of Lake Geneva catch the cisco 
is strikingly different from that of the 
fishermen of other places who fish for 
the ciscoes, or herring, as they call 
them. In this connection we quote 
from Professor Charles Lindin, of Buf- 
falo, now deceased, who wrote for THE 
AMERICAN ANGLER, in July, 1883, an 
extended paper on the ‘‘ Cisco of Lake 
Erie: 
‘As soon as the waters of Lake Erie 
become refrigerated, which happens 
about the latter end of October, the 
herrings, as they are briefly called by 
the fishermen along the shores of the 
lake, make there appearance near the 
shores in the low water and at the 
mouth of the Niagara river, which they 
frequent undoubtedly forspawning pur- 
poses, as their ovaries, particularly 
those of the larger females, are full of 
well matured eggs. 
‘‘It is by the seine only that the her- 
ring, arriving in the late fall, is taken, 
and all other artifices to allure it, by 
bait or fly, have thus far proven unsuc- 
cessful. An occasional haul, however, 
testifies that this fish does not leave the 
river, but that it remains here until the 
beginning or middle of July, when it 
again retires to parts unknown, which 
are probably not far from the vicinity 
