SALMONID^. 



137 



ova so soon as, or even before, the streams are clear from ice, and 

 returning a spent fish in the autumn. It is a sub-genus of the genus 

 Salmo, true — but as distinct from it as a Roebuck from an Elk. 



My second object in devoting a page or two to this little fish, is to 

 call the attention of scientific men to the fact that there are, in the 

 United States, two distinct species of this fish : the Common Ameri- 

 can Smelt, Osmerus Viridescens — which differs from the European 

 Smelt, Osmcriis Eperlanus^ in many particulars — and a much smaller 

 and more highly scented, as well as highly flavored, variety, which I 

 believe to be identical of the European fish. 



Some years since, before I thought of publishing on this subject, 1 

 compared this smaller fish with the Eastern Smelt, Osmerus Virides- 

 cens, of Le Sueur, and, although I have unfortunately lost the notes 

 which I made at that time, and forgot the specific differences, except 

 that the ventral fin in the smaller fish was considerably farther forward 

 than in the common fish, I am certain of the fact that there were 

 farther differences in the number of the fin-rays, apart from the extra- 

 ordinary difference in size, which could not fail to strike the least ob- 

 servant. 



This smaller fish, so far as I know or have heard, is never taken but 

 in the Passaic and Raritan rivers ; and in neither of these is the large 

 Smelt, common alike to the Eastern and the Southern States, ever 

 seen. I have observed and examined many thousands, by bushel bas- 

 kets-full at a time, and have never seen a fish exceeding seven or eight 

 inches in length taken from the Passaic, the general run not exceed- 

 ing six ; whereas it is notorious that the American Smelt is rarely 

 taken less than ten or eleven, and thence upward to twelve and fifteen 

 inches. 



Yarrel states of the European Smelt, that they are occasionally 

 seen ten and eleven inches long, but that this is an unusually large 

 size. 



He also describes their food, during their residence in fresh-water, 

 as consisting of small fish, with crustaceous and testaceous animals. 

 In the Tay they are said to feed principally upon the shrimp ; and I 

 have heard it asserted by persons of integrity, that they have been 

 caught with the same bait near Belleville, on the Passaic. 



It was my full intention to have instituted a full examination and 



