208 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



of the American coregoni, described in this work, have the snout so decidedly pos- 

 terior to the tip of the under jaw as the Lochmaben fish, the nearest approach to it 

 being the Lake Huron Herring-Salmon, to be afterwards described. 



The Bear Lake Herring- Salmon was seen by us nowhere but in the great sheet 

 of water whence it derives its trivial name. That lake extends from the 65th to 

 the 67th parallel of latitude, and is remarkably clear and deep. Its surplus waters 

 are carried off by a large stream which falls into the muddy current of the Mac- 

 kenzie, and there are no rapids, between it and the sea, that fish cannot surmount, 

 yet none of the anadromous salmon of the Arctic Sea have been known to enter 

 the lake ; the Salmo Mackenzii confining its migrations in fresh water to the Great 

 Slave Lake, and the turbid branches of the Mackenzie River. The Namaycush, 

 Masamecoos, Attihawmeg of large size and very fine quality, Round-fish, and Back's 

 grayling, are taken in Great Bear Lake, but none of them so abundantly as the 

 C. lucidus, of which the nets yielded us fifty thousand in the year 1825-6 *. The 

 lake begins to freeze in October, and in the course of November most of its 

 narrower arms are covered with ice, but, according to Indian report, its centre 

 is not closed for the season before the beginning of January, and during the whole 

 winter a small piece of water continues open at the point from whence the Bear 

 Lake River issues. The ice begins to break up in shallow bays towards the end 

 of May, and is entirely gone by the end of June. In September the nets were set 

 near Fort Franklin, at the influx of a river about four miles from the outlet of the 

 lake, and their daily produce was between three and four hundred Herring-Salmon. 

 Though the fish continued to be equally plentiful at that spot during October, the 

 fishery was discontinued on account of the floating ice, which did not become firm 

 enough for the nets to be set with safety under it before the middle of November ; 

 and in the beginning of December the Herring- Salmon, resorting in numerous 

 shoals to the outlet of the lake, were of course followed thither by the fishermen. 

 At this spot, the water was three or four fathoms deep, but the fish could be easily 

 seen through the clear ice, which enabled the Indians to spear a few, though more 

 fell a prey to the otters. In January the fishery was not only unproductive, but 

 several of our party suffered severely from the bad quality of the fish, whose intes- 

 tines contained at this time a matter so caustic as to blister the hands of those 

 whose duty it was to clean them. From the end of February the fish daily im- 

 proved in quantity and quality, until the rivers opened in May, when the fisheries 

 were again removed to the mouths of several small streams which fall into the lake. 



* In eighteen months we obtained about three thousand five hundred trout, none weighing less than two pounds, and 

 some exceeding thirty. 



