FISHES OF NEW YORK 283 



is large, the maxilla extending slightly behind the eye. Small 

 teeth on the intermaxillaries and maxillaries and the front of 

 the lower jaw. Posteriorly the teeth of the mandible are 

 larger. The tongue is armed with a few large fanglike teeth, 

 and there are widely set teeth on the vomer, palate, and ptery- 

 goid bones and at the root of the tongue. Gill rakers long and 

 slender; branchiostegals eight; the dorsal small, nearly median 

 over the ventrals; anal moderately long; scales large, thin, 

 easily deciduous, in about 75 rows along the sides; lateral line 

 short, not extending much beyond the end of the pectoral; a 

 lew small pyloric caeca. The hight of the body is nearly one 

 iifth of the total length, without caudal, and nearly equal to 

 the length of head. The eye is nearly one fifth as long as the 

 head. The pectoral equals the longest dorsal ray in length and, 

 -also, length of anal base. The ventral is one half as long as 

 the head. Longest anal ray not much more than one half the 

 anal base. D. ii, 8; A. iii, 14; V. ii. 7. 



The upper parts are greenish; a broad silvery band along the 

 sides; body and fins with numerous minute dusky points. 



The smelt is known along our east coast from Labrador to 

 Virginia. It probably extends still farther north, but the record 

 of W. A. Stearns, published in the proceedings of the National- 

 Museum for 1883, p. 124, fixes the most northern locality known 

 at present. He found the smelt common in August in shoal 

 water off the wharves of Cape Breton. In Pennsylvania the fish 

 is common in the spring in the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. 

 In numerous lakes of Maine, New Hampshire, and other New 

 England states, the smelt is common landlocked, and thrives 

 as well as in the salt water. 



De Kay knew the smelt as a marine species ascending the 

 Hackensack and Passaic rivers. The species occurs also in 

 Lakes Champlain and Memphremagog. In the former lake it 

 reaches a large size. At Port Henry N. Y. the fish is called ice 

 fish. 



Its range has been widely extended by artificial introduction, 

 which is very easily effected by transporting the fertilized eggs 



