SALMONOIDEiE. 187 



[7*2.] 1. Salmo (Mallotus) villosus. (Cuvier.) The Capetin. 



Family, Salmonoidea?. Genus, Salmo. Linn. Sub-genus, Mallotus. Cuvier. 



" Clupea villosa. Mull, Prodr , p. 425." 



Salmo arcticus. Fabricius, Fauna Graenl., p. 177. No. 128. 



Capelan. Penn., Arct. Zool., ii,, p. 141. No. 175. 



Salmo Grcenlandicus. Bi.och, t. 381. Richardson, Frank. Juurn., p. 710. 



Angmaggeuck. Esquimaux. Angmagsak, Sennersulik (male). Greenlanders. 



This sub-genus, like the preceding one, contains only a single ascertained 

 species, which frequents the northern seas. It swarms on the coasts of Norway, 

 Lapland, Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland, the Welcome, Coronation Gulf, and, 

 if the Ouiki, or Salmo catervarms of Steller be the same, it inhabits the Sea of 

 Kamtschatka. It has not been mentioned by travellers as existing in the Icy Sea 

 of Siberia, but is very probably an inhabitant of that sea also, thus completing the 

 circuit of the arctic coasts. It approaches the shore in dense shoals in the spawn- 

 ing season, the females preceding the males. The latter, at this period, acquire 

 elevated bands on the sides, composed of soft, tumid, elongated scales, by which it 

 is said they adhere together, sometimes to the number of ten or more, and in this 

 state they are occasionally driven on shore by the wind in immense quantities. 

 Some males, named sennersuitsut by the Greenlanders, want the ridges of enlarged 

 scales. April, May, June, and July are the months in which the Capelin ap- 

 proaches the Greenland coast. In the beginning of August we observed mul- 

 titudes of the males congregated on some sandy shoals near the mouth of Back's 

 River, which falls into Bathurst's Inlet. Many of them leaped into the canoes and 

 furnished a very acceptable dish of fish for our table, much relished by the whole 

 party. Mr. Anthony Parkhurst, who is said by Pennant to be the first author who 

 has noticed this fish, in a letter to Hakluyt written in 1578, after indulging in 

 some facetious remarks respecting his skill in charming it and the squid or cuttle- 

 fish to come ashore, observes, that the nature of the squid is to come by night as 

 well as by day ; but the other, which is like a smelt, and is called by the Spaniards 

 Anchovas, and by the Portuguese Capelinas, " commeth also in the night, but 

 chiefly in the day, being forced by the cod that would devoure him, and therefore 

 for feare comming so neare the shore, is driven drie by the surge of the sea on the 

 pibble and sands. Of these being as good as a smelt you may take up with a 

 shove-net as plentifully as you do wheate in a shovell, sufficient in three or four 

 houres for a whole citie." 



The Malloti are very nearly allied to the Osmeri, the principal difference being 



2 b 2 



