872 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
body with tine spots of bluish black pigment, more 
scattered but larger in the silvery band. Down the 
sides these spots become still more dispersed, until they 
disappear on the belly. The snout, which is otherwise 
transparent, and the tip of the lower jaw bear the 
densest and largest spots of pigment. The silvery 
peritoneum gleams through the ventral sides. The lower 
* 
part of the tail is transparent, of the same colour as 
the back, only paler (yellower), and the median line of 
the belly is partly transparent, partly more or less 
milk-white. The iris is of a silvery lustre, but the 
upper part of the eyeball is coated with a thick, bluish 
black pigment, which sometimes advances over the top 
of the iris. In the tins the membrane is transparent, 
and the rays are of a lighter or darker gray, darkest 
in the caudal and pectoral tins, and, after these, in the 
anterior part of the dorsal tin. 
One of the most noticeable characteristics of the 
Smelt — which it possesses, however, in common with 
the Capelin — is its peculiar odour. This is most 
powerful in young specimens, and comes nearest to the 
smell of the cucumber, though not without a trace of 
violet perfume. It is at all events far from pleasant 
to the ordinary individual, and its seat being the dermal 
mucus of the tish, it communicates itself to everything 
with which the Smelt conies in contact. 
The Smelt has an extensive range in the North 
Atlantic from east to west, for Osmerus mordax ( viri - 
descens), the form belonging to the east coast of North 
America, can hardly be regarded as a species distinct 
from our common Smelt. On the Atlantic coasts and 
in the rivers that fall into the Atlantic Ocean, its oc- 
currence is, however, confined, generally speaking, to 
the zone bounded by the 40th and 60th degrees of 
latitude", though in the Baltic it is found further north, 
up to the head of the Gulf of Bothnia. South of France 
it is unknown, and it is not common south of the 
north-west of that country; but from this region, in- 
cluding the British Isles and the Continent, up to the 
south-east of Norway, throughout the greater part of 
Sweden, in Finland, and in Russia, it occurs, and in 
suitable localities is common, within the basins of the 
North Sea and the Baltic. In Russia, according to 
Grimm * 6 , it has also spread to the basin of the Volga. 
It is really an anadromous tish, ascending the rivers in 
order to spawn, and in the southern part of its range 
its occurrence is almost exclusively restricted to tidal 
waters. But in many places it has become a stationary 
fresh-water tish. In the lakes of Jutland it is fairly 
common, according to Kroyer, who had also procured 
specimens from Roskilde Fjord, and records a statement 
as to its occurrence in Lake Fur (Zealand); but with 
these exceptions the Smelt is said to be wanting on the 
Danish islands. In Norway, according to Collett, it 
is found only in Christiania Fjord and in fresh water 
south of the Dovre Fjeld, though not west of Lake Nord 
in Telemark; and on the west coast it is said to be 
wanting 0 . According to the reports sent in to the 
Fisheries Commission of 1881 — 83 the Smelt is wanting 
in Sweden only within the Governments of Jonk5ping d , 
Kronoberg, Gothland, Blekinge, and Halland. Through- 
out Finland the Smelt is common, up to lat. 66 N. 
(Malmgren); but in the White Sea it is replaced, as 
we have mentioned, by Osmerus spirinchus. A singular 
gap in its geographical range appears in the Baltic 
within the Sound, where it is wanting or at least ex- 
tremely rare on the Scanian coast, off Bornholm, and 
on the coast of Blekinge. The gap reminds us of a 
similar break in the range of the Common Sea-Snail 0 , 
though the Smelt is by no means an Arctic species. 
It is especially common in Russia, North Germany 
— particularly in the Haffs — and the Netherlands; 
and the Smelt fisheries of the Seine and Thames are 
to Paris and London what the fishery in the Norr- 
strom is to Stockholm. In Irish waters the Smelt 
seems to be wanting. 
“The Smelt is of a stupid and sluggish tempera- 
ment”, wrote Ekstrom, and this opinion has afterwards 
been reiterated by other writers — “silly as a Smelt,” 
is a common Swedish saying. But why it is thus stig- 
matized more than other fishes, we cannot say. Gathered 
in shoals during the spawning, when it is ruled by 
sexual instincts alone, it is easy to catch like many 
other fishes; and this is probably the origin of its re- 
puted stupidity. It is a voracious fish-of-prey — which 
may easily be seen by its teeth — and its form of body 
“ According ro Gaimard (1. c.) the Smelt occurs on the coasts of Iceland; but Faber had no information on this head. 
6 Fishing and Hunting in Russian Waters, p. 20. 
c Olsen ( Piscatorial Atlas) states, however, that the Smelt occurs in Bucke Fjord off Stavanger. 
d Yet it is found in Lake Wetter. 
e Cf. above, p. 289. 
