202 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



article of food, being generally lean and watery, though it is wholesome and desti- 

 tute of any disagreeable flavour. 



description * 



Drawn up from an examination of recent male specimens in the winter of 1819-20 at Cumberland-House, 



Pine Island Lake, lat. 54° N. 



Colour. — In the shade, the bach is greenish-grey, the belly white, and the sides of an inter- 

 mediate hue ; but when opposed to the light, the whole body is silvery, with much lustre. The 

 top of the head is covered with smooth bluish-grey skin. Scales oblong, half an inch long, 

 and of nearly uniform size. 



Form much compressed, the belly rounded, the back rather more acute. The profile is 

 broadly oblong, tapering suddenly at the anal ; the head conical. Eyes large, and rather 

 more than their own diameter from the end of the snout. The orifice of the mouth is trans- 

 verse and rather small, and when the jaws are open the snout appears truncated. The inter- 

 maxillaries are small and cartilaginous ; the labials oblong, and when thrown forward by the 

 opening of the mouth their under ends project beyond the snout. The lower jaw is a little 

 longer than the upper one : its knobbed tip fits into a depression between the inter maxillaries. 

 The gill-membranes are plaited at their insertion into the isthmus. The cheeks are nearly 

 covered by the sub-orbitar bones. 



Teeth not perceptible on the jaws, but there is a small plate of minute ones on the centre 

 of the tongue : there are also two rows of minute teeth on the inner sides of the cartilaginous 

 rakers. Each branchial arch is furnished with a single row of rakers, the central ones of the 

 upper arch, which are the longest, measuring half an inch. 



Fins.— Br. 8 ; D. 14—0 ; P. 16 ; V. 12 ; A. 8 ; C. . 



The first two rays of the dorsal are short. The caudal has a shallow fork. 



Intestines. — The alimentary canal descends from the gullet for an inch and a half, it is 

 then bent upwards for another inch and is more dilated, but there is no extraordinary thicken- 

 ing of the coats as in the Attihawmeg : its thick lining is disposed in six longitudinal folds, 

 and forms a prominent ring at the pylorus, where it evidently terminates. Between the 

 pylorus and the upper end of the abdominal cavity there is a thin bag, having the same width 

 with the fundus of the stomach ; it is lined by a firm, somewhat glandular, membrane, per- 

 forated by the mouths of numerous cceca. The slender intestine runs straight downwards to 

 the anus from this dilated commencement : its under half, furnished with regular valvules con- 

 niventes, has a greater caliber than its upper half. There are in all about one hundred and 

 twenty caeca, inserted into the dilated sac, and a short way down the slender tube of the intes- 

 tine. The gall-duct opens near the pylorus. The spleen is long and large. The melt has a 

 wood-brown colour. 



* I have omitted such parts of my original notes as agree with the preceding account of the Attihawmeg and are more 

 generic than specific. 



