32 FISH-CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 
THE WHITE FISHES OF NORTH AMERICA: 
BY TARLETON H. BEAN, M.D., M.S. 
Curaior of the Department of Fishes in the United States National Museum. 
The white-fishes, properly so-called, all belong to the genus 
Coregonus, which, however, admits of division into several minor 
groups, based chiefly upon the character of the mouth and the 
form of the body. We have, in North America, twelve recog- 
nizable species, one of which is now apparently for the first 
time distinguished by name. These species are usually of wide 
distribution, and subject to great variation with age and sur- 
roundings, making it dificult for the student to sharply define 
them by the use of characters which are generally believed to 
have specific value. An attempt is made, on a subsequent page, 
to set forth the relations of these twelve species by calling atten- 
tion to the peculiarities which seem to be most important and 
least subject to variation. The form of the mouth, the structure 
of the gill-rakers, the size of the species, and, in some cases, the 
length of the fin-bases, appear to serve the purposes of classifi- 
cation best; but it is difficult to apply any fixed formule of defi- 
nition and little to be wondered at that most of our common 
forms have been described over and over again since they were 
originally introduced into the literature. 
I have placed along with the white-fishes that magnificent 
species, the finest of all the fishes closely related to Coregonus, the 
Inconnu of the McKenzie and Yukon regions. This well-flav- 
ored species grows to four feet in length and is known to have 
reached fifty pounds in weight. From an examination of the 
Russian Stenodus leucichthys, 1am inclined to think that the Amer- 
ican /zconnu is identical with the species of Giildenstadt, and, if 
so, the range of the species is much more extensive than we 
have supposed. It may be, also, that several of the Alaskan 
species of Coregonus will prove to be identical with Siberian 
forms; but we are unable to state anything definite about this 
at present. 
The white-fishes are among the most important, economically, 
of all fishes. I need refer only to the fisheries of our great lakes 
