148 



LOWER VERTEBRATES. 



Germany, and Scandinavia, has the mouth very small, the sharp snout projecting far 

 beyond it. N"o species similar to this is found in America. The Eocky Mountain 

 white-fish {Coregonus williamsoni) has also a small mouth and projecting snout, but the 

 latter is blunter and much shorter than in C. oxyrhynchus. This is a smaU species abound- 

 ing everywhere in the clear lakes of the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, 

 from Colorado to Vancouver Island. It is a handsome fish, and excellent as food. 



Closely allied to C. williamsoni is the pilot-fish, shad-waiter, round-fish, or Meno- 

 monee white-fisli, Coregonus quadrilateralis. This species is found in the great lakes, 

 the Adirondack region, the lakes of New Hampshire, and thence northwestward to 

 Alaska, abounding in cold, deep waters, its range apparently nowhere coinciding with 

 that of C. williamsoni. The common white-fish (C. cliipeiformis) is the largest in 

 size of the species of Coregonus, and is unquestionably the finest as an article of food. 



Fig. 96. — C&regomts williamsoni, Eocky Mountain white-fisK 



It varies considerably in appearance with age and condition, but in general it is pro- 

 portionately much deeper than any of the other small-mouthed Coregoni. The adult 

 fishes develop a considerable fleshy lump at the shoulders, which causes the head, 

 which is very small, to ajjjjear disjDroportionately so. 



The white-fish spawns in November and December on rocky shoals in the great 

 lakes. Its food, which was for a long time unknown, was ascertained by Dr. P. R. 

 Hoy to consist chiefly of deep-water crustaceans, with a few molluscs, and larva of 

 water insects. " The white-fish," writes Mr. James W. Milner, " has been known since 

 the time of the earliest explorers as pre-eminently a fine-flavored fish. In fact there are 

 few table-fishes its equal. To be appreciated in its fullest excellence, it should be taken 

 fi-esh from the lake and broiled. Father Marquette, Charlevoix, Sir John Richardson, 

 explorers who for months at a time had to depend on the white-fish for their staple 

 article of food, bore testimony to the fact that they never lost their relish for it, and 

 deemed it a special excellence that the appetite never became cloyed with it." The 

 range of the white-fish extends from the lakes of New York and New England north- 

 ward to the Arctic Circle. The ' Otsego bass,' of Otsego Lake in New York, cele- 

 brated by De Witt Clinton, is the ordinary white-fish. 



Allied to the American white-fish, but smaller in size, is the lavaret, Weissfisch, 

 Adelfisch, or Weissfelchen (^Coregonus lavaretus), of the mountain lakes of Switzer- 

 land, Germany, and Sweden. Several other related species occur in northern Europe 

 and Siberia. 



