50 



ticability of acclimatizing the riv^er-trout and sea-trout of 

 England, while France and Germany are congratulating 

 themselves upon the successful introduction into their 

 waters of our rainbow-troat and quinnat-salmon from Cali- 

 fornia. , 



In the distribution of the Salnionidce Alaska received a 

 generous share. Lying entirely within the area in which 

 the family is indigenous, plentifully supplied with long 

 water -courses, rapid snow -fed streams, and cool, deep 

 lakes glistening in mountain valleys, over beds of clean 

 gravel and boulders intermingled with sheltering water- 

 plants, free from obstructions to the movements of the 

 migratory species, its invitation to the salmon to come 

 in and possess the waters and multiply therein was readily 

 accepted. 



Ichthyologists at present recognize about one hundred 

 species in the family under discussion, divided among 

 the genera of true white-tishes, nelma white-hshes, gray- 

 ling, Pacific and Atlantic salmons, brook-trout, the short- 

 lived ai of Japan, and thelenok of Siberian rivers and lakes. 

 All of these genera, except the last two, occur in our out- 

 lying province, and they are represented by seventeen 

 known species, or about one-sixth of the entire number. 



Tlie rivers and lakes of Alaska contain five species of 

 white-fish, the largest one {Coregonus richardsoni, Plate I,* 

 fig. 1) sometimes reaching a weight of thirty pounds. For 

 many years this was believed to be identical with the com- 

 mon white-fish of our great lake fisheries, but it differs from 

 this in many j)articulars. The species was known to the 

 Russians as the ^^muksuii.'''' In the report of the Commis- 

 sioner of Agriculture for 1870, p. 386, Ball refers to it as the 

 " broad white-fish," which, he says, " is usually very fat, 

 and very good eating. It abounds in both winter and sum- 

 mer; spawns in Sex)tember in the small rivers falling into the 

 Yukon. ' ' This is the species which Milner named Coregonus 



* The line under the tail of the figures represents one inch of the length. 



