494 AMERICAN FISHES. 
somus artedi. erring or Lake Herring is the name in most general use, 
but others are Cisco, Michigan Herring, Blue-back Herring, Gray-back 
Herring, Green-back Herring, and Shore Herring. 
“These different names are the fishermen’s way of distinguishing indi- 
vidual variations in color, sex, age, or time of run. Usually the fishermen 
claim that the Gray-backs run in the spring and that the spring or early sum- 
mer is their spawning time. The Green-backs and Blue-backs run in the 
late fall, and they are a better fish than the Gray-backs. It is not unlikely 
that all the fish found spawning in early summer are Bloaters (4. progna- 
thus). In Lakes Erie, St. Clair, Huron, and Superior the fish is generally 
known as Herring and Lake Herring, which are the names in use in 
Canada. In Lake Michigan the names Herring, Michigan Herring, Blue- 
back Herring, and Shore Herring are in use. The name Herring is in 
places shared by another species (4. Zoyi). A trade name for large Herring 
in Lake Erie is Ciscoette or Siscowet ” — not to be confounded with the 
Siscowet or deep-water trout of Lake Superior. 
Mr. M. H. Perley, of St. Johns, New Brunswick, as early as 1852 made 
some observations of this species which are still the main source of infor- 
mation, and have been copied without acknowledgment by later writers. He 
remarked that it “is found in considerable numbers in Lake Temiscouata, 
where many are taken every autumn by the French Canadians, who come 
over from the St. Lawrence to fish for them, and call them oisson pointu. 
The English lumbermen call them ‘Gizzard-fish.’ They are taken occasion- 
ally along the Madawaska River, and the writer has caught them with rod 
and line below the falls of that river, at its confluence with the St. John, in 
the early part of summer. At these falls the inhabitants take about 4o 
barrels every autumn, which are cured in pickle for winter use. The white- 
fish abounds in all the Eagle lakes, at the head of Fish River, a tributary of 
the Upper St. John, and in the St. Francis lakes, at the stream’s head. In 
these lakes it is caught abundantly every autumn, by torchlight, with dip 
nets. It has.not been observed in any of the lakes or rivers which discharge 
into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, nor yet in any of the waters of Nova Scotia. 
“‘ Some years since this fish was abundant in the Grand Lake, where the 
writer, in the month of May, saw great numbers taken out of gill nets set 
for gaspereau [alewife], and thrown away by the fishermen as worthless. 
At the same time the writer caught a number of them with rod and line in 
one of those small pieces of water connected with the Grand Lake, usually 
called ‘keyholes.’ It is occasionally taken in the Saint John throughout its 
