538 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
“Hialmare Giadda, Siljans Laka, Ulo Lax, 
Aro bland basta fiskar uti sjogar tags.”® 
Several parts of the Burbot are used by the Swe- 
dish peasants, and also, according to Pallas, by the 
Ostiacs 6 , as medicinal remedies. The oil which flows 
spontaneously from the liver, is employed as eye-salve; 
and the pyloric appendages, which are known by the 
peasants as lakeklo (Burbot-claws), are dried and pow- 
dered, the powder being taken in doses of a teaspoonful 
as a preventative of ague. The skin is wrapped, as soon 
as it has been flayed, round cracked glass vessels. When 
dry it adheres firmly to the glass, keeping the pieces to- 
gether and rendering the vessel watertight. The Ostiacs 
make it into clothes. When rubbed with fat or oil it 
becomes semi-transparent, and is said to be used by the 
Russian peasants to glaze their windows. The air-bladder 
may be employed, in the form of isinglass, as glue. 
The methods of catching Burbot are various but 
simple, as this fish is by no means cautious or cunning. 
It is taken most generally and in the greatest quantity 
in traps, either of the ordinary description (see p. 33, 
fig. 7), or hanging-traps , which are sunk in a hole in 
the ice and hung there vertically (with the top upmost). 
Sometimes too, single traps (mjardar, see p. 32, fig. 6) 
are set at the bottom. In spring, as soon as the ice has 
broken up, the Burbot is also taken with long-lines, 
which are generally baited with Pope (Acerina cernua ), 
the most tempting bait and that most easily procurable 
at this season. In summer it is caught on standing- 
hooks, in which case the bait should also lie sunk to the 
bottom. During winter the so-called lakskifva (Burbot- 
disk) is used, a, plate of lead in the shape of a fish and 
furnished with several hooks, with which the Burbot is 
struck. This disk also appears in another form — called 
rot (rat) or lakekdx, and common on the shores of Lake 
Wetter and in Vermland — which consists of a spike 
with four hooks projecting in opposite directions (in a 
cross), and is not unlike a grapnel. On the shaft just 
above the hooks or a little further up, the fisherman 
fastens a bit of Burbot-roe wrapped in a piece of muslin, 
or a small fish. This tackle is let down through a hole 
in the ice. The fisherman keeps plucking the hook up- 
wards as soon as it reaches the bottom, and two or three 
Burbot, allured by the bait on the hook, may often be 
struck and drawn up together. When the Burbot makes 
its way to the shores, a habit we have mentioned above, 
it is stunned ( dofvacl ). This is done in the following 
manner: the fisherman, armed with nothing but an axe, 
walks slowly and cautiously on the clear, new ice near 
shore, and when he sights the Burbot, which keeps close 
under the ice, he brings down the axe-head heavily just 
above the head of the fish. The latter is thus stunned, 
and lies helpless at the same spot, while the fisherman 
quickly breaks a hole in the ice and secures his catch. 
Of course, this last method is feasible only on very 
shelving shores. (Sundevall, Smitt.) 
Genus 
PHYCIS. 
Two fully developed dorsal fins , one anal fin; the vertical fins distinctly separated (a distinct peduncle of the tail). 
Ventral fins with three rays, hut apparently 'with only one, filamentous, and branched. Caudal fin truncate or 
rounded. Cardiform teeth of uniform size (without canines ) on the intermaxillary hones, in the lower jaw, and 
on the head of the vomer. Branchiostegal rays 7. 
The great inconstancy in the number of rays in 
the ventral fins of the preceding genus contrasts it most 
sharply with the genus Phycis, in which these rays have 
suffered considerable reduction in number, but in adult 
specimens have attained a length in most cases even 
relatively greater than that which otherwise characterizes 
the larvae of these fishes. In comparison with the three 
preceding genera, which Phycis resembles in the arrange- 
ment of the vertical fins, this genus is distinguished by 
the deeper, more compressed form of the body in adult 
specimens. During youth, however, the types are in 
this respect similar, or at least very nearly so. 
The genus Phycis, itself one of the deep-sea fishes, 
is the centre of a group consisting of several other 
forms that belong to the abyssal zone, and compose 
series of forms with different directions of development, 
but so continuous that the limitation of the genera is 
extremely difficult, if it be even possible to suggest a 
“ “Pike of Hialmare, Burbot of Siljan, Salmon of Ulea, Are among the best fishes caught in lakes.” Hialmare is a lake in central 
Sweden, Siljan a lake in Dalecarlia, and Ulea a river in Finland. Tk. 
6 The Ostiacs are a people of Finnish extraction that inhabit the country between the Ural Mountains and the River Obi and the 
neighbourhood of the Yenisei. Tr. 
