224 



AMERICAN FISHES. 



SUBBRACHIAL 

 MALACOPTEKYGII. 



THE AMERICAN WHITING. 



Merlangus Americanus, 



This is, comparatively speaking, a rare and little-known fish, that 

 which is commonly called Whiting, being in reality a Hake Merlucius 

 It ranges only from Massachusetts northward. 



It is easily distinguished by its long, tapering, cylindrical body, and 

 its high, triangular, wing-like dorsals. 



Its color is, above the lateral line, a bright nacrous bluish gray, and 

 below a silvery white, with fins nearly of the same color. 



The head of the Whiting is acutely prolonged ; the eyes large and 

 prominent ; the gill-covers rounded ; the teeth sharp and small. 



The three dorsals have respectively tbirteen, twenty and twenty 

 rays ; the pectorals nineteen, the ventrals six, the anals respectively 

 twenty-four and twenty-one, and the caudal thirty-two. 



The Whiting is a, delicate fish. It is taken in the same manner 

 and in the same waters with the Cod and Haddock, and, like them, 

 has little or no game habits. My chief reason for inserting him in 

 this work is, that his existence in American waters has been doubted 

 and denied. 



* Note to Revised Edition. — I have just learned from Mr. King, of Charleston, 

 S. C, that this fish has lately been found in their waters, having, it is thought, es- 

 caped from an Eastern fishing-boat, and boconie naturalized. 



