44 AMERICAN FISHES. , 



rounded with teeth like the Capelin. In all the specimens the upper 

 jaw was so much injured that its structure could not be ascertained ; 

 but it is probable that the intermaxillaries, being small as in the Cap- 

 elin, were not distinguished from the labials by Dr. Gairdner, in his 

 examination of the recent fish. The rakers of the branchiae are long 

 and slender as in the Smelts and Capelin. The stomach resembles 

 that of the Capelin ; the descending portion ends in a pointed sac, and 

 a short branch which it gives off in the middle terminates in the pylo- 

 rus. The intestine makes a bend, or rather twist, downwards at the 

 pylorus, and runs straight to the anus, its calibre gradually becoming 

 less as it approaches the latter. There are nine caeca, three of them 

 rather shorter than the others, close to the pylorus ; the other six, in- 

 serted in a single series down one side of the intestine, are each half 

 an inch long. In three specimens there are sixty-eight vertebrae in 

 the spine, and in two sixty-nine. A male specimen, with the melt 

 half-grown, showed no traces of villi, or altered scales, on the lateral 

 line, though the skin was apparently entire in that place. Male Cape- 

 lins, destitute of the ridges of elongated scales, are occasionally taken 

 in Greenland." 



