350 The Grayling and the Smelt 
in abundance in recent shales in Greenland enveloped in nodules 
of clay. In the open waters about the Aleutian Islands a small 
smelt, Therobromus callorhini, occurs in very great abundance 
and forms the chief part of the summer food of the fur-seal. 
Strangely enough, no complete specimen of this fish has yet 
been seen by man, although thousands of fragments have been 
taken from seals’ stomachs. From these fragments Mr. Frederick 
A. Lucas has reconstructed the fish, which must be an ally of 
the surf-smelt, probably spawning in the open ocean of the north. 
The silvery species called Argentina live in deeper water 
and have no commercial importance. Argentina silus, with 
prickly scales, occurs in the North Sea. Several fossils have 
been doubtfully referred to Osmerus. 
The Microstomide.—The small family of Microstomide con- 
sists of a few degraded smelt, slender in form, with feeble mouth 
and but three or four branchiostegals, rarely taken in the deep 
seas. Nansenia grenlandica was found by Reinhardt off the 
coast of Greenland, and six or eight other species of A/icrostoma 
and Bathylagus have been brought in by the deep-sea explora- 
tions. 
The Salangide, or Icefishes.—Still more feeble and insignifi- 
cant are the species of Salangide, icefishes, or Chinese whitebait, 
which may be described as Salmomde reduced to the lowest 
terms. The body is long and slender, perfectly translucent, 
almost naked, and with the skeleton scarcely ossified. The 
fins are like those of the salmon, the head is depressed, the jaws 
long and broad, somewhat like-the bill of a duck, and within 
there are a few disproportionately strong canine teeth, those 
of the lower jaw somewhat piercing the upper. The alimentary 
canal is straight for its whole length, without pyloric ceca. 
These little fishes, two to five inches long, live in the sea in 
enormous numbers and ascend the rivers of eastern Asia for 
the purpose of spawning. It is thought by some that they are 
annual fishes, all dying in the fall after reproduction, the species 
living through the winter only within its eggs. But this is 
only suspected, not proved, and the species will repay the care- 
ful study which some of the excellent naturalists of Japan are 
sure before long to give to it. The species of Salanx are known 
as whitebait, in Japan as Shiro-uwo, which means exactly the 
oe eee . 
Sind ae ee 
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