TUT, CHIEF MOI'NTAIN WHITE FISH. 



The greatest height of Ixwly is equal to tin- length of the head. The least height of tail is 

 equal to the length of the snout. The lengths of the caudal j>eduncle, of the snout, aud of the 

 mandible are equal to each other. The width of the interorbital area is equal to the length of the 



maxillary. 



170. THE SMELT FAMILY MICROSTOMID.E. 

 THE SMELT OSMERUS MORDAX. 



The Smelt is found along our Atlantic coast from the Raritan River, latitude 40 30 7 , to the 

 Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The northern limit of its range has not been precisely defined, although 

 it is known to be extremely abundant along the northern shores of New Brunswick. It is also 

 found in many of the fresh-water lakes of Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, where they 

 have become Innd-locked, and iu some instances, as in Belgrade Lake, Maine, seem to have rather 

 been improved by the change from salt to fresh water. 



The European Smelt, O. eperlanus, which, though very similar in form to our own, differs from 

 it in the size of its scales, is found in Southern Sweden, as far north as Christiania Fjord district, 

 latitude 02, and south as far as the entrance to the river Loire, latitude 47, ascending the Seine as 

 high as Rouen. It is the "Stint" and the "Spearling" of Germany, the "Smelt" or "Sparling" 

 of England, and the "Spiering" or "Spearling" of Holland. It is found in the Baltic, and, 

 entering the Gulf of Finland, becomes a member of the fauna of Russia, and is found land-locked 

 in cool lakes, especially those of Norway, and also in many of the lakes of Northern Germany, 

 and even as far south as Bavaria. 



The Smelt enters our rivers and brackish bays during the winter months for the purjwse of 

 spawning, and at this period is caught in immense quantities in nets and by hook and line John 

 Smith wrote in 1622: "Of Smelts there is such abundance, that the Salvages doe take them up the 

 rivers with baskets, like sives"; while Josselyn, fifty-five years afterward, remarked: "The Frott- 

 fixh (O. mordax) is little bigger than a Gudgeon, and are taken in fresh brooks; when the waters are 

 frozen they make a hole in the Ice, about half a yard or yard wide, to which the fish repair in great 

 numbers, where, with small nets bound to a hoop about the bigness of a firkin-hoop, with a staff 

 fastened to it, they take them out of the hole." 



It is to bo regretted that no one has made careful observations upon the beginning and close 

 of the breeding season of this species at different points along the coast, but the spawn appears 

 to be deixxsited, generally, late in the winter and early in the spring. The smelt fishery is increas- 

 ing yearly in importance, owing to the greater facilities for the transportation of fish in ice. As 

 long ago as 1853, Storer stated that in Watertown, Massachusetts, alone, about 750,000 dozen were 

 annually taken in scoop-nets from the 1st of March to the 1st of June. Perley, writing in 1852, 

 stated that on the Gulf coast of New Brunswick large quantities were used every season as manure, 

 while at the fishing stations in the Bay of Chaleur it was taken in the seine and used as bait for 

 cod. At the present time, however, there is an enormous shipment of Smelt from this region to 

 the United States, forty car-loads sometimes being received in New York in the course of one 

 winter. As early as 1864, according to a note from Mr. J. Matthew Jones, quantities of Smelt were 

 packed at Halifax for shipment to the United States. 



The Smelt feeds, for the most part, on shrimps and other small crustaceans. 

 Although on account of their great abundance they sell in the markets at a low price, they 

 are among the very choicest of all our food-fishes. The "green" Smelts, as they are called, or 

 those which have never been frozen, are much tin' more highly esteemed, especially those which 

 come from the Raritan Bay and other points in (lie nrifrliUorhood of New York. 



