SALMONOIDE.E. 191 



River and the Welcome. Its highly-appropriate Esquimaux name., denoting 

 " wing-like fin," alludes to its magnificent dorsal, and it was in reference to the 

 same feature that I bestowed upon it the specific appellation of Signifer, or the 

 " standard-bearer," intending also to advert to the rank of my companion, Captain 

 Back, then a midshipman, who took the first specimen that we saw with the arti- 

 ficial fly. It is found only in clear waters, and seems to delight in the most rapid 

 parts of the mountain streams. In the autumn of 1820 we obtained many by 

 angling in a rapid of Winter River, opposite to Fort Enterprise. The sport was 

 excellent, for this grayling generally springs entirely out of the water when first 

 struck with the hook, and tugs strongly at the line, requiring as much dexterity to 

 land it safely as would secure a trout of six times the size. The stomachs of the 

 individuals that we then took were filled with a black earthy-looking matter, mixed 

 with what appeared, on a cursory examination, to be gravel, but which w T as perhaps, 

 in reality, fragments of the shells that abound in the waters it inhabits. The roes 

 of individuals caught towards the end of August were considerably developed, but 

 neither the spawning places, nor the precise period of spawning, were ascertained 

 by us. The Indians say that it spawns in the spring, and that its winter residence 

 is in the lakes. 



The characters by which the Graylings are distinguished from the trouts in the 

 Regne Animal, are the smallness of the mouth, the fineness of the teeth, the great 

 size of the dorsal fin, and the largeness of the scales. The stomach is a very thick 

 sac, the gill-rays are seven or eight in number. 



The plate which is given of Back's Grayling in the narrative of Sir John Frank- 

 lin's First Journey, was executed from an individual taken in Winter Lake, and 

 carefully skinned and dried. I much regret that that specimen having gone to 

 decay, I cannot compare it with the one brought by the last expedition from Great 

 Bear Lake, of which the figure in the present work is an exact representation, 

 drawn on a scale of half the natural size. The two figures differ in the relative 

 size of the head, depth of the body, and some other particulars. The dorsal fin in 

 the first plate is incorrect, not from any fault of the skilful artist who dreAV it, but 

 owing to a part of the fin, which was broken off in the carriage, having been sup- 

 plied by guess. The individuals taken in Great Bear Lake were much duller in 

 their tints of colour than those we obtained in Winter River, probably because the 

 latter being nearly in a spawning condition, were more brilliant than at other 

 seasons. 



