THE TALE OF THE FISHES 



In passing, permit me to remind you that our com- 

 mon smelt, with its European cousin, is a salmonoid, 

 by some classified as a charr, and that there are on both 

 sides of the Atlantic anadromous as well as land-locked 

 forms, anatomically the same fish. The name it goes 

 by is pure English, — Smellit — its scientific name Os- 

 merus perpetuates the Greek root osme, an odor — and 

 you may recall its peculiar cucumber fragrance which 

 Willoughby in the 1 7th Century likened to that of 

 violets — "gratis simum violae odorem spirante." The 

 Germans designate it as Silnli fisch. {Stink in Old 

 English means merely to have an odor, without refer- 

 ence to its quality.) 



And now a moment with the Dublin Pond trout, 

 (Plate No. 9), the New England representative 

 of the intermediate race, the Canadian forms of which 

 may be those designated by Suckley as Salmo hudson- 

 icus and which appear to be without mottling on the 

 back, possess basi-branchial teeth and favor the saib- 

 ling in shape. Old inhabitants speak of the Dublin 

 trout as coming on its beds "in cartloads" and of 

 the fanners feeding bushels of them to their hogs. 

 I ask attention to the color markings that have be- 



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