480 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



they are more concentrated and give a darker hue to these areas. The cheeks and 

 iris are silvery, with faint iridescence. The dorsal and caudal fins are sprinkled with 

 pigment and the distal ends are darker, but not conspicuously so, except sometimes 

 on the shortest rays of the caudal. The abdominal fins are whitish transparent 

 without conspicuous pigmentation, though the anal and pectorals often have a 

 sprinkling of pigment. 



All color fades in alcohol and leaves the details of pigmentation more obvious. 

 The dorsal and caudal show a more conspicuous dark band on their tip, and the 

 back of the "blueback" remains decidedly darker. 



Pearl organs are present to some extent on all males in the breeding season and 

 probably on all females. They are developed best in the males and are indicated 

 only faintly in females. Their development is not different in general from that 

 described for the chub (p. 350), except that the irregular pearls on each scale in the 

 predorsal and preventral areas possibly may be more numerous in this form. 



VARIATIONS 



Racial variations. — In Lake Erie, Jordan and Evermann (1911) found three 

 species of lake herring, which were named by them Leucichthys cisco huronius, L. 

 artedi, and L. eriensis. In addition, Bean (1916) described a form L. macropterus 

 from a single specimen obtained at Erie, Pa. No other individuals like it have been 

 collected and none have been seen by any of the numerous fishermen interviewed 

 by me on Lake Erie, so that it may be assumed that Bean had a monstrosity. Clemens 

 (1922), in following Jordan and Evermann, distinguished the three species reported 

 by them for the lake and two others, L. harengus and L. prognathus. The form 

 harengus is distinguished very unsatisfactorily from cisco huronius by Jordan and 

 Evermann themselves, and L. prognathus is a deep-water form that is taken seldom 

 in any of the other Great Lakes in less than 60 fathoms and therefore is not likely 

 to be found inhabiting Erie, with a maximum recorded depth of about 30. Doctor 

 Clemens, however, expresses his uncertainty about the applicability of the names 

 harengus and prognathus to his forms, and the consideration of them as belonging 

 to Erie may be dismissed for the time being. 



The fishermen of Lake Erie find no differences in the Leucichthys of the lake 

 except that those of the eastern end, where the water is deepest and where the popu- 

 lation is densest, average smaller and those on the shallow western flat, where herring 

 are few, more often attain exceptional size (1 pound or more). All are considered 

 herring and, so far as the fishermen know, all spawn together. From an examina- 

 tion of several thousand specimens from the eastern end of the lake taken out of 

 Dunkirk and Barcelona, N. Y., Erie, Pa., and Port Dover, Ontario, and from the 

 western end of the lake taken out of Sandusky, Ohio, Monroe, Mich., and Merlin, 

 Erieau, Bidgetown, and Port Stanley, Ontario, it is possible to understand the con- 

 clusions at which the systematists and fishermen have arrived. In Lake Erie there 

 is a slim terete form, typical artedi (cisco huronius of the writers cited), that is dis- 

 tinguishable from the much more numerous albus form (artedi of the writers cited) 

 by its shallower, less compressed body, shorter paired fins, smaller adipose fin, more 

 numerous scales and scale rows, and darker color of the back. Such of these charac- 

 ters as can be expressed numerically are compared for the two forms in Table 67. 



