THE WHITEFISHES, LAKE HERRINGS, 
AND INCONNU. 
Of venison Goldsmith may wittily sing, 
A very fine haunch is a very fine thing ; 
And Burns, in his tuneful and exquisite way, 
The charms of a smoky Scotch haggis display ; 
But ’t is often much harder to eat than descant, 
And a poet may praise what a poet may want; 
Less doubt there shall be *twixt my Muse and my dish 
While her powers I invoke in the praise of White Fish. 
Henry R. ScHOOLcRAFT. 
HITEFISH is a name well known in the northern United States 
and Canada, and applied rather indefinitely to various species of a 
group of Salmonids related to the Salmons and Trouts, but distinguished 
superficially by the absence or minute size of the teeth and the small 
mouth, as well as by the immaculate or “ whitish’’ body and fins. ‘They are 
very characteristic of the lakes of the north ; and one or more species may 
be found in almost every permanent lake of moderate or even quite little 
size and depth. They are well represented by various species in northern 
and alpine Europe and in Great Britain, but in the latter country they are 
not known as Whitefish. The four species generally attributed to Great 
Britain are named Houting or Hautin, Fresh-water Herring, Schelly, Ven- 
dace, and Pollan. In Wales, however, the Coregonus clupeoides is named 
Gwyniad, which means Whitefish. (Whitefish and various lingual equiva- 
lents in Europe are generally used as collective names for cyprinoid 
fishes. ) 
The American species are numerous, at least eighteen species being 
recognized by recent investigators, These are representative of two quite 
different genera, the typical Whitefishes and the Lake Herrings; the 
former belong to the genus Coregonus and have a very small mouth, broad 
jaws, and a more or less projecting snout; the latter constitute the genus 
Argyrosomus and have a mouth somewhat like a herring’s, comparatively 
narrow jaws, rather sharply pointed snout, and an even or projecting lower 
jaw. Certain species of both of these genera are of considerable econom- 
