2880 THE BONY FISHES AND GANOIDS 



Growing to a length of seven or eight inches in the sea, the common smelt is also 

 found in rivers and landlocked lakes, where its size is always considerably less. 

 The allied candlefish ( Thaleichthys} of the Pacific coasts of North America, dis- 

 tinguished by its rudimental teeth, has flesh of such an oily nature that it can be 

 burnt as a candle, although it is likewise used as food. 



For want of a collective English name, we must allude by a 

 modification of their Latin title to an extensive group of mostly fresh- 

 water salmonoids, among which the powan (Coregomts dupeoides}, the vendace 

 (C. vandesius} of Lochmaben, and the pollan (C. pollan} of the Irish lakes, are 

 well-known British forms. In these fish the scales are not strikingly large; the cleft 

 of the mouth is of moderate size, with a broad maxilla, either short or of medium 

 length, and not extending beyond the front margin of the socket of the eye; while 

 the teeth, if present at all, are minute and deciduous, in the adult usually remaining 

 only on the tongue. The dorsal fin is not over long, and the caudal is deeply 

 forked. Whereas in the small size of their eggs these fish resemble the smelts, 

 they differ in having about one hundred and fifty blind appendages of nearly 

 uniform length attached to the intestine. As already mentioned, these fish differ 

 from the typical salmonoids in the relations of the bones on the top of the skull, on 

 which account they are regarded by Professor Cope as indicating a separate family. 

 Represented by over forty species, ranging over Northern Temperate Europe, Asia, 

 and North America, coregonoids are for the most part entirely fresh- water fishes, 

 although a few make periodical migrations to the sea, while the European schnaepel 

 (C. oxyrhynchus) is as much a marine as a fresh- water fish. Local in their distri- 

 bution in Europe, although as many as three different species may inhabit the 

 same lake, coregonoids are extremely abundant in all the fresh waters of North 

 America (where they are commonly known by the name of whitefish) ; and whereas 

 all the British forms are small, some of the continental species may attain a length 

 of fully two feet. The genus may be divided into groups, according to the con- 

 formation of the muzzle and jaws. Of these, the first is represented solely by the 

 schnaepel (C. oxyrhynchus}, which frequents the coasts and rivers of Belgium, 

 Holland, Germany, and Sweden, and occasionally wanders into British waters. It 

 is easily distinguished by the production of the extremity of the upper jaw into a 

 conical fleshy snout projecting beyond the lower, while its scales are more or less 

 nearly circular. In length, this fish grows to a foot and a half. As an example of 

 the group in which the muzzle is obliquely truncated, with the nose projecting, we 

 may take the marane (C. lavaretus}, shown in the lower figure of our illustration; 

 this fish being widely distributed in the lakes of the Continent, where its flesh is 

 highly esteemed as food. Whereas in the Austrian lakes this fish does not exceed 

 fourteen or fifteen inches in length, with a weight of half a pound, in Lake Con- 

 stance it grows to a couple of feet in length, and from four to six pounds in weight. 

 Living at great depths, this fish feeds on worms, insects, and water snails. While 

 the powan belongs to another group characterized by the vertical truncation of the 

 muzzle, the pollan and vendace are assigned to yet another division in which the 

 lower jaw is longer than the upper, into a shallow notch of which it is fitted. As a 

 representative of this latter group we take the pygmy marane (C. albula) of North- 



