104 Fisninc iv AMERICAN WATERS. 
THE SPEARING, OR SILVERSIDES.— Genus Atherina. 
of a broad satin-like band, extending the whole length of the 
body; the place of the ribs indicates lustrous stripes, which 
J) 
disappear shortly after death; upper part of the opercles, 
near the nape, dark green; caudal dark at the base, and with 
an obscure marginal band; dorsal caudal fins light green; 
pectorals, ventrals, and anal light colored, tinged faintly with 
bluish; irides silvery; bones of the head sub-diaphanous.” 
The foregoing quotation is from De Kay’s description of 
the smelt ; but he inadvertently described a spearing. Tam 
not surprised at that, for they shoal together, and even Dr. 
Clerk, an angler and a scholar, did not know the difference 
until I casually pointed it out to him. 
When in the autumn’s latest time, 
And first the streams run icy cold, 
In Indian summer's crimson prime, 
When forest trees are touched with gold, 
Then take the silvery fish that gleam 
Along the eddies of the stream. 
THE CAPLIN, 
This is the tiny, translucent fish, of from three to six inches 
in length, which shoals in great abundance on the shores of 
Newfoundland and Labrador, and is chiefly used as bait for 
cod. It will be seen that this fish belongs to the same order 
as the smelt and spearing, the chief difference consisting in 
its double anal fin. All codfish fleets employ a sloop, two 
row-boats, and a set of hands with caplin nets, to keep them 
supplied with bait. It is an interesting sight to witness a 
city of boats distributed over many miles of water in the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence, or about Newfoundland, and the bait- 
tenders hauling seines over shoals and about islands where 
the tiny caplin resort for protection from the cod. So, it ap- 
