344 THE FRESH-WATER FISHES OF EUROPE. 



Swiss lakes, and are an esteemed delicacy. In some localities they ai'e salted, 

 smoked, or baked, and packed for export. 



This species is known in Upper Austria as Rheinanken ; in Bavaria as 

 Renke, in the Tyrol as Renken, and in Lake Constance as Felchen, though the 

 names vary with age even in the same locality ; and many of the great lakes 

 have independent systems of nomenclature. 



Coregonus clupeoides (LACE"PEDE). The Powan. 



D. 1415, A. 1316, V. 1112, P. 17, C. 19. 

 Scales : lat. line 73 90, transverse 9 



The Powan belongs to the group of species with the snout vertically trun- 

 cated, and is confined to the lakes of Great Britain. It commonly weighs three 

 to four pounds, and may reach a length of as much as sixteen inches. It is 

 known in Loch Lomond as the Powan, and is usually termed the Freshwater 

 Herring, which it is not unlike in appearance. It abounds in Ullswater and 

 the lakes of Cumberland to a height of two thousand six hundred feet above 

 the sea, and is known in the Lake district as the Schelly. It is also found in 

 the lakes of Wales, especially Bala Lake, where it is said to have been 

 abundant before Pike were put into the lake at the beginning of this 

 century ; it is known as the -Gwniacl. It is gregarious, and, according to 

 Pennant, approaches the shore in spring and summer in immense shoals, so 

 that as many as eight hundred have been taken in a single sweep of the net 

 in one of the Westmoreland lakes ; and Pennant says the Rev. Mr. Farrish, of 

 Carlisle, wrote that he was assured by an Ullswater fisherman that one summer 

 he took between seven and eight thousand at a single draught. 



It sometimes wanders from Bala Lake, but is recorded by Pennant in the 

 Dee only at Llandrillo, six miles down the stream. This excellent observer 

 states that it spawns in December in Llyntegid, but since his time no obser- 

 vations on its habits appear to have been made. Some of his specimens 

 weighed between three and four pounds. It dies very soon after it is cap- 

 tured, and requires to be eaten at once, though it is often preserved with 

 salt. It is said to be insipid as food ; but though Pennant may have thought 

 so, probably, when contrasting it with Trout or Salmon, we have pleasant 

 recollections of the delicate Powan of Loch Lomond as a fish to be eaten 

 again in September. 



Giinther compares it to Coregonus wartmanni. The head is one-fifth of 

 the length of the fish, but the body is deeper than the head is long. In shape 



