GREAT LAKES COREGONIDS 



311 



and references to it in only the two reviews of the coregonid fauna of North America — 

 those by Evermann and Smith (1896) and Jordan and Evermann (1911) and in that 

 of Dymond (1926) for Lake Nipigon. Few of the other works on these fishes have 

 been critical, and often it is impossible to determine to what species the accounts 

 refer. A more or less complete list of works containing other references to Great 

 Lakes coregonids is appended in the bibliography. 



References to the whitefishes are to be found in the earliest literature dealing with 

 the Great Lakes region, namely, in the "Relations," of the Jesuit fathers. As 

 early as 1634 Paul le Jeune mentioned the whitefish in the Canadian waters; and in 

 the "Relation" of 1669 and 1670 Father d'Ablon described the method of capturing the 

 whitefish {clupeaformis) at the Sault of Sainte Marie. He added that, on account 

 of the custom of the natives to linger along the rapids for the purpose of fishing the 

 whitefish, a mission was established at this place. He said further that a great many 

 herring (artedi), which were much like those of the sea in shape and size but were 

 no£ quite as good for food, were taken in Superior, particularly in November. 

 Explorers of the eighteenth century (Charlevoix, Hennepin, Lahontan, and others), 

 also spoke of the whitefish and attested to its fine qualities as a food fish. 



Pennant (1792) was the first zoologist to record an American species of Core- 

 gonus. He stated (on p. 298) that "Salmo laveretus or gwiniad is found in Hudson 

 Bay in vast abundance." He added that "there is a lesser kind called the Sea 

 Gwiniad," which he describes briefly. Richardson (1823), said these fish undoubtedly 

 were 0. clupeaformis and P. quadrilaterale, for the reason that no other fish of similar 

 appearance or habit were known from the area that Pennant visited. A later mention 

 of the whitefish, which antedated the first description by about three years, was 

 made by DeWitt Clinton in a letter to S. L. Mitchill, dated February 1, 1815. 

 He said in this letter that the whitefish is the most delicious of the fishes in the western 

 waters and that it must be a nondescript Salmo, judging from the account he received 

 of its form and habitudes. 



Dr. S. L. Mitchill (1818) described the whitefish, which he called Salmo clupea- 

 formis, 1 whitefish of the lakes. The description is based on a specimen obtained 

 from th& falls of St. Mary at the northern extremity of Lake Huron, and is the first 

 scientific description of an American Coregonus. While the description is not 

 adequate, and was supposed, for many years afterward, to refer to artedi, it seems safe 

 to assume that Mitchill actually had the whitefish. The review of the remaining 

 literature on American forms follows in chronological order. 



LeSueur, C. A., 1818. — Inadequate descriptions of two coregonids are given — Coregonus artedi 

 and C. albus. The latter is figured. The two fish thus described are lake herring. As they were 

 taken from Lake Erie (though the former was said to occur in the Niagara River also), LeSueur must 

 have had in hand the two types of herring that are known to occur there — the blueback, which is 

 found in the other lakes, and the cisco, a fatter and broader variety, which is abundant in Lake 

 Erie. It has been supposed by many ichthyologists, erroneously, that LeSueur had the true white- 

 fish (the Erie form of clupeaformis) in mind when describing albus, and consequently the name 

 albus has been associated with this form. A study of the original account indicates that this is not 

 likely, even though LeSueur did say that albus was called the whitefish. He says, for example, 

 "This species differs from the preceding one (artedi) in its body having more depth, its back a greater 



1 This name has been altered frequently to the classically correct form clupeiformis. 



