224 PISCES. 



old male. From all the Arctic seas, whence it enters the rivers in the spring. 

 The value of this fishery in all northern countries is well known. 



Besides these Salmons and Trouts which are found in Europe, several 

 others have been described by American naturalists, but they have notbeen 

 sufficiently compared with the former. 



In one of the various subdivisions of this great genus {Osmerus) we find 

 the Smelt. 



Sternoptyx, Herman. 

 A genus of small fishes with a very elevated and compressed body, support- 

 ed by the ribs; their mouth is directed upwards; their humerals form a 

 trenchant crest in front, terminated below by a small spine, and the bones 

 of the pelvis form another, also terminated by a small spine in front of the 

 ventrals. There is a series of small fossulae along each side of the pelvic 

 crest which has been considered as a festooned dupUcature of the sternum, 

 whence the name of Sternoptyx. They are taken in the warm parts of the 

 Atlantic Ocean. 



FAMILY V. 



CLUPEiE. 



This family is easily recognized; there is no adipose fin; the up- 

 per javt' is formed, as in the Trouts, by intermaxillaries without pe- 

 dicles in the middle, and by the maxillaries on the sides; the body 

 is always covered with numerous scales, and in the greater number 

 we find a natatory bladder and many caeca. A part only of the 

 family ascend rivers. 



Clupea, Lin. 

 The Herrings have two well marked characters in the narrow and short in- 

 termaxillaries, that constitute but a small portion of the upper jaw, the sides 

 of which are completed by the maxillaries, so that these sides are alone pro- 

 tractile; and in the inferior edge of the body, which is compressed, and 

 where the scales form notches resembling those of a saw. The maxillaries 

 besides, are divided into three parts. The branchiae are so much cleft, that 

 all the fishes of the genus are said to die instantly when taken from the 

 water. The sides of the branchial rays next to the mouth are pectiniform. 

 Of all fishes, these have the finest and most numerous bones. 



C.harengus,L,. (The Common Herring.) This celebrated fish leaves 

 the Arctic seas every summer and descends in autumn on the western coast 

 of France in numberless legions, or rather in solid shoaJs of incalculable ex- 

 tent, spawning on the way, and arriving at the mouth of the British chan- 

 nel in the middle of winter, in a very extenuated condition. Whole fleets 



