POPULAE NAMES OF THE BUEBOT. 237 



name, therefore, should be retained. In Norfolk, England, "Cony-fish" is a name given to the 

 European Burbot, from its habit of skulking in rat-holgs and corners under the banks. 



Size. — We are told by J. E. Forster, in Philosophical Transactions, Ixiii, 1773, p. 149, that 

 the weight of the Burbot in the Hudson's Bay region is from one to eight pounds. According to 

 Pennant, who derives his information from Forster, the Burbot of the Hudson's Bay region reaches 

 a weight of eight pounds. In Alaska, Mr. Dall says that they grow to a very large size, reaching 

 a length of five feet, and weighing as much as sixty pounds. In the Bighorn and Little Bighorn 

 Eivers, Montana, the species reaches an average weight of less than a pound, and does not exceed 

 eighteen inches in length. Mr. W. Ainsworth, of Cape Vincent, New York, says that the Burbot 

 in the waters of Lake Ontario and Saint Lawrence Eiver average two and a half pounds in 

 weight, occasionally reaching four pounds. The United States National Museum has received 

 from Mr. E. G. Blackford, of New York, numerous individuals from the Great Lake region, aver- 

 aging certainly not less than five pounds in weight. In the United States National Museum 

 collection the Burbot from the lakes are, as a rule, larger and plumper than those from rivers. 

 The exceptions are one from Fort Pierre, Nebraska, and two from the Yukon Eiver. These are 

 louger but more slender than the lake Burbot. It seems highly probable that river Burbot may 

 generally be recognized by their slender bodies and small size, which characters we may attribute 

 to the small amount of food obtainable in the rivers, as compared with the supplies found in lakes. 

 The Burbot of the Connecticut Eiver, which furnished the type of Lota compressa, is short,but really 

 less compressed than some from England, Southern Europe, and from our own lakes. Le Sueur's 

 type of compressed Burbot may have been the starved or emaciated form known to fishermen as 

 "Eacer," and it may have been the ordinary little Burbot of the Connecticut already referred to. 



Eblation to the Eueopean Bukbot. — The American Burbot cannot be distinguished from 

 its European ally by external characters ; in both, the color, the position of the fins, the number of 

 the fin-rays, the structure and arrangement ol the teeth, the situation and size of the eyes, and the 

 relative proportions being substantially alike. There is less diiference between the average Ameri- 

 can and European types of Burbot than there is between extremes of the former. At one time 

 I thought that the number of pyloric coeca, or the length of the intestines, might be available in 

 classification, but the amount of individual variation is so great in this respect that no division 

 can be based thereon. The pyloric coeca iu the European specimens which I have studied ranged in 

 number from 20 to 77; in America from 36 to 138. There is only one example having the latter 

 number, and that came from the Yukon Eiver. Another individual from the same stream had 102 

 coeca, and in all probability a large series would still further reduce the gap. This variation in the 

 number of cceca is paralleled in other species, notably in the Cod and the Salmon, Salmo salar. 

 In the former I have counted 140, 160, 256, 271, 289, and 340 in six individuals. In the Salmon 

 Mr. J. K. Thacher records a variation between 44 and 70.^ 



Even iu the Craig flounder, Glyptocephalus cynoglossus, which has few cceca, I have counted 

 9 in one adult and 11 iu another. The basis of distinction between the European and American 

 forms of Burbot is solely the smaller number of vertebrae in the former. It may be that an exam- 

 ination of a large series of skeletons will show that the difference is constant, and it is also pos- 

 sible that other good characters will be found which will entitle the European form to separate 

 specific rank, or such examination may show a European Burbot with as many vertebrse as one 

 of our American series; iu which event it would seem proper to unite the two under the name of 

 Lota maculosa. 



' Report of United States Fisli Commission, part 2, 1874, p. 371. 



