126 The Grayling and the Smelt 
pan-fish in British Columbia. The writer has had considerable 
experience with it, broiled and fried, in its native region, and 
has no hesitation in declaring it to be the best-flavored food- 
fish in American waters. It is fat, tender, juicy, and richly 
flavored, with comparatively few troublesome bones. It does 
not, however, bear transportation well. The Indians in Alaska 
bury the eulachon in the ground in great masses. After the 
fish are well decayed they are taken out and the oil pressed 
from them. The odor of the fish and the oil is then very offensive, 
less so, however, than that of some forms of cheese eaten by 
civilized people. 
The capelin (Mallotus villosus) closely resembles the eula- 
chon, differing mainly in its broader pectorals and in the peculiar 
scales of the males. In the male fish a band of scales above 
Fic. 85.—Capelin, Mallotus villosus L. Crosswater Bay. 
the lateral line and along each side of the belly become elongate, 
closely imbricated, with the free points projecting, giving the 
body a villous appearance. It is very abundant on the coasts 
of Arctic America, both in the Atlantic and the Pacific, and is 
an important source of food for the natives of those regions. 
This species spawns in the surf, and the writer has seen 
them in August cast on the shores of the Alaskan islands (as at 
Metlakahtla in 1897), living and dead, in numbers which seem 
incredible. The males are then distorted, and it seems likely 
that all of them perish after spawning. The young are 
abundant in all the northern fiords. Even more inordinate 
numbers are reported from the shores of Greenland. 
The capelin seems to be inferior to the eulachon as a food- 
fish, but to the natives of arctic regions in both hemispheres it 
is a very important article of food. Fossil capelin are found 
