304 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



As early as 1852, Mr. M. H. Perley gave the following very interest- 

 ing account 1 of this species: 



This fish, the celebrated attihawmeg of the great northern lakes, so frequently 

 described by Arctic voyagers as the most delicious of all purely fresh-water fishes, 

 is found in considerable numbers in Lake Temiscouata, where many are taken every 

 autumn by the French Canadians, who come over from the St. Lawrence to fish for 

 them, and call them poisson pointu. The English lumbermen call them "gizzard 

 fish." They are taken occasionally along the Madawaska River, and the writer has 

 caught them with rod and line below the falls of that river, at its confluence with 

 the St. John, in the early part of summer. At these falls the inhabitants take about 

 10 barrels every autumn, which are cured in pickle fof winter use. The whitefish 

 abounds in all the Eagle lakes, at the head of Fish River, a tributary of the Upper 

 St. John, and in the St. Francis lakes, at the stream's head. In these lakes it is caught 

 abundantly every autumn, by torchlight, with dip nets. It has not been observed 

 in any of the lakes or rivers which discharge into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, nor yet 

 in any of the waters of Nova Scotia. 



Some years since this fish was abundant in the Grand Lake, where the writer, in 

 the month of May, saw great numbers taken out of gill nets set for gaspereau, and 

 thrown away by the fishermen as worthless. At the same time the writer caught a 

 number of them with rod and line in one of those small pieces of water connected 

 with the Grand Lake, usually called "keyholes." It is occasionally taken in the 

 Saint John throughout its whole extent. In the harbor of Saint John, in spring, it 

 has been often caught in the seines and weirs with the gaspereau and salted with 

 that fish because its value was not known. 



It is probable that the similar fish found in the lower part of the Saint John have 

 strayed from the great lakes at the sources of its upper tributaries and have been 

 swept over the Grand Falls by some extraordinary flood. Once over those falls there 

 is no possibility of return. The whitefish seen by the writer have seldom exceeded 

 1^ pounds in weight, but they are taken in Lake Temiscouata of the weight of 3 

 pounds and even more. It is an inhabitant of all the interior lakes of America, from 

 Lake Erie to the Arctic Sea. Several Indian tribes mainly subsist upon it, and it 

 forms the principal food at many of the fur posts for eight or nine months of the year, 

 the supply of other articles of diet being scanty and casual. Its usual weight iu the 

 northern regions is from 2 to 3 pounds, but it has been taken in the clear, deep, and 

 cold waters of Lake Huron of the weight of 13 pounds. The largest seen in the 

 vicinity of Hudson Bay weighed between 4 and 5 pounds, and measured 20 inches 

 in length and 4 in depth. One of 7 pounds' weight, caught in Lake Huron, was 27 

 inches long. Very recently the writer had an opportunity of seeing some fresh 

 specimens of the whitefish of Lake Erie, a and was satisfied of their identity with the 

 "gizzard-fish" of the Saint John and Lake Temiscouata. 



During the summer the whitefish is not seen in Lake Temiscouata, and it is then 

 supposed to retire to the depths of that unusually deep and cold lake. In October 

 it draws near the shores, and ascends the Tuladi River for the purpose of spawning. 

 It ascends the river during the night, and, having deposited its spawn, returns as 

 quickly as possible to the lake. It is when this fish draws near the shore, prior to 

 spawning, that the fishery is carried on, chiefly at a little bay in Lake Temiscouata, 



1 Descriptive Catalogue of the Fishes of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, by M. H. 

 Perley. Fredericton, 1852. This account of the attihawmeg, published in 1852 by 

 Mr. Perley, was appropriated by Charles Lanman and republished verbatim as orig- 

 inal matter in the United States Fish Commission Report for 1872-73. In this report 

 Mr. Lanman prints three articles dealing with nine species of fishes, copying the 

 entire amount of his articles from Perley without credit. James F. Knight, in 1866, 

 in a descriptive catalogue of the fishes of Nova Scotia, made a similar use of much 

 of the interesting portions of Mr. Perley's paper. 



2 The "whitefish" which Mr. Perley saw from Lake Erie were probably C. clupei- 

 formis, rather than C. labradoricus, as he thought. 



