910 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
Herring-shoals, and devours their roe. Afterwards it 
returns to deeper water, and does not re-appear until 
the close of summer, at the end of September. Except 
during the spawning-season the Gwyniad is so cunning 
and cautious a fish that its sagacity has given rise to 
a proverbial expression, a sly person being called an 
arg sik (a thorough Gwyniad). It is also timid, and 
so voracious as to devour not only the roe of other 
fishes but also its own. It dies soon after it is taken 
out of the water.” This greatly depends, however, on 
the depth at which it is caught. When drawn up from 
very deep water, it dies at once, the air-bladder swells, 
and the belly is distended, sometimes to monstrous 
dimensions. 
The lake Gwyniads also assemble in shoals twice 
a year. The first period is during summer, when in- 
sect life is most thriving, gnats and dragonflies sport 
at the surface or drop into the water, and when the 
small crustaceans ( Entomostracn and fresh-water Garn- 
maroids) are most plentiful. Shoals of Gwyniads then 
seek their food at the surface and in the shallows. 
Fhe other period is in autumn and winter, when the 
Gwyniads gather to spawn. Similar observations have 
been made in North America". In Lake Ontario, for 
instance, the Gwyniad is taken early in spring far out 
in the lake, in about 200 feet of water. At the be- 
ginning of June it repairs in shoals to the coast in 
quest of food. At the beginning of August, when the 
heat of the upper layers of water is too oppressive, it 
speedily retires to the deeper and cooler parts of the 
lake. About the middle of October it again approaches 
the coast, but on this occasion in order to spawn, an 
operation which lasts from the middle of November 
to the beginning of December, and is performed in 
water of a temperature of about 40° Fahr. (+ 4 1 / 2 C.). 
But in certain lakes the summer shoals do not appear, 
for example in Lake Erie, according to Milner, where 
the surface temperature sometimes rises to 75° Fahr. 
(-*- 24° C.), and where the Gwyniad resorts in summer 
to the deepest parts of the lake. Here, however, it is 
by no means condemned to starvation. 
a See Mr. P. Kiel in Be. Goode, Fisher ., Fisher. Industr. U. 
h According to Beehm’s description of the fishery in the R. 0 
spawn at the end of the summer, and return in August, usually at t 
Obi ( Thierleben , Bd. VIII, p. 235). The Gwyniads brought home b; 
Riksm. Salmon ., tab. metr. XIII, No. 424, cett.) that the eggs were 
been performed in the course of the summer. In some of the very ( 
and August. 
The largest and most developed Gwyniad forms, 
with their more or less ventral mouth (situated on the 
under surface of the snout), are evidently in the first 
place bottom-feeders. They seize the larger Gamma- 
roicks and the mollusks ( Limncea , Planorbis, Pisidium , 
etc.) which live among plants and in the mud, not to 
mention, as we have already stated, that they are vora- 
cious roe-eaters. Small fry also enter into their diet. 
Young Gwyniads and the smaller forms, with their 
more terminal mouth (situated at the tip of the snout), 
are in general shore and surface fishes, and have to 
content themselves with smaller prey. But in many 
Scandinavian lakes, especially in Norrland and Lapland, 
small crustaceans ( Entomostraca ) and gnat-worms occur 
in such multitudes that even the large Gwyniads grow 
fat on them. 
The spawning-season occurs, as we have mentioned, 
in autumn and winter 6 , as a rule from the middle of 
October until after the beginning of January. The 
young spawn in comparatively shallow water, only 1 — 3 
fathoms in depth, and earliest in the year; older spe- 
cimens generally breed later and in the deeper parts 
of the lakes. The males usually come first to the 
spawning-place, the females following them. The breed- 
ing fishes display eager excitement, especially at night. 
The males even cling fast with their teeth to the fe- 
males, seizing them under the gills or by the pectoral 
fins. Or the pair sometimes two or more males and 
one female — pressed close together, run in sinuous 
curves towards the surface or even above it, “belly to 
belly, with their sides gleaming bright in the water, 
where they strive and wriggle until they are rid of the 
roe and milt, which adheres to the bottom, and on 
stones or nets” (Gisler). In stormy, snowy, or very 
cold weather the spawning is performed in the same 
wav, but several metres below the surface. The water 
round about is dyed with loose scales, and after the 
spawning the exhausted fish seek out resting-places. 
The eggs are light yellow, and their dimensions 
vary considerably, according to the size of the mother 
fish. In Udsikar from Lake King the ripe eggs measure 
S., sect. I, p. 510. 
i, the Gwyniads ascend the river from the sea when the ice breaks up, 
ie end of the month, to the Arctic Ocean, or at least to the Gulf of 
Theel and Tbybom from the Yenisei in 1876 also show (see Smitt, 
so large at the beginning of July that the spawning might well have 
eep Swiss lakes too, according to Fatio, the Gwyniad spawns in July 
