COMMON EASTERN SMELT. 
THE SMELTS AND THEIR KINDRED. 
What have we here? ... A fish: he smells like a fish: a very ancient and fish-like smell ; a kind of, not 
of the newest, Poor-John. A strange fish. SHAKESPEARE: The Tempest, Act II. Scene 2. 
I warrant you, coach after coach, letter after letter, gift after gift ; smelling so sweetly. 
SHAKESPEARE: Merry Wives of Windsor, Act IT. Scene 2. 
[IS all the cold and temperate northern seas may be found fishes which 
have a superficial resemblance in form to the Salmonids, and which, like 
them, have a fatty sac or adipose dorsal fin between the true dorsal fin and 
caudal.’ The typical forms differ, however, much in color from the Salmon- 
ines, for generally their bodies are greenish and almost translucent on 
account of the reduced number of red blood corpuscles and pigment spots, 
-and they are further notable for a more or less defined longitudinal lateral 
silvery band. They are further remarkable for an odor which they emit 
which has been variously compared to that of the cucumber and garlic, and 
which is so perceptible as to have commanded for them the English name 
Smelt and consensual ones in other languages. The same idea is expressed 
by the scientific name, Osmerus, meaning odorous. 
Smells, as well as tastes, differ. When stale, a smelt has indeed “a very 
ancient and fish-like smell,” but when quite fresh, many a man may think it 
** smelling so sweetly ” as many a flower. 
While the superficial features just indicated are characteristic of most of 
the members of the group to which the Smelts belong, those which remove 
them from the Salmonids and have caused their segregation in a peculiar 
