COMMON WHITE-FISH. 879 
93. CoREGONUS CLUPEIFORMIS (Mitchill) Milner. 
Common WW hite=-fish. 
Salmo clupeiformis, MIrcHILL, Amer. Monthly Mag., ii, 1818, 321. 
Coregonus clupeiformis, MILNER, Mas., in Jordan, Man. Vert., 2d Ed., 1878, 362. (Not of 
authors generally = C. artedi.) 
Coregonus albus, LESUEUR, Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., i, 1818, 231.—GUNTHER, Cat. 
Fishes Brit. Mus., vi, 184, and of most authors. 
Coregonus otsego, DEWITT CLINTON, Med. Phil. Regist., iii, 183, the,‘‘ Otsego Lake Bass.” 
- Coregonus richardsoni, latier and sapidissimus, GUNTHER, Cat. Fishes Brit. Mus., vi, 
185, 186. 
Description.—Body obleng, compressed, always more or less elevated, and becoming 
notably so in the adult; head comparatively small and short, the snout bluatish, ob- 
liquely truncated ; maxillary reaching just past front of orbit, about four in head; eye 
large, 4 to 5 in head; color olivaceous above; sides white, but not silvery ; width of pre- 
orbital Jess than half that of pupil; lower fins shortish; gill rakers moderato, slender, 
two-thirds diameter of eye, about 50 below ang’e of arch; tip of snout on level of pupil; 
. tip of lower jaw on level of lower part of eye; head 5 in length; depth 3 to 4; D, 11; 
A. 11; scales 8-74-9. Length, 20 inches. ‘‘ The average white-fish is of two or three 
pounds weight, a large one six or seven; rarespecimens are caught, however, of much 
greater weight, sometimes turning the scales at 20 pounds.”’— Stockwell. 
Habitat, large bodies of water; Great Lakes and northward. 
Diagnosis.—This species may be known from other White-fishes by the 
small mouth and short lower jaw, in connection with the slender gill- 
rakers and narrow preorbital. The young are much slenderer than the 
adult, and the variations due to food and condition are very great. Old 
fishes usually have a considerable fleshy hump at the shoulders, and the 
head seems disproportionately small. 
Habi'‘s.—The following account of the spawing habits is from the pen 
of Dr. G. A. Stockwell, of Port Huron, Michigan Gin Hallock’s Sports- 
man’s Gazetteer, 4th edition, 332, 1878): 
‘¢ The spawning begins in November, terminating in December, and is indicated by 
the fish leaving deep water and appearing in immense numbers on rocky shoals. 
Formerly they frequented the st#eams for this purpose, but at the present time, there 
are but few streams emptying into the Great Lakes that are free from saw-mills and 
their attendant dust, which is offensive to these fish. At the first day’s netting on the 
spawning beds, the catch is wholly males, apparently well stocked with milt; on the 
second, a few females appear, plump with spawn The proportion of females increased 
day by day until a week or ten days when there are two or three and often four times 
as many females as males, after which they gradually disappear, until the latter pre- 
ponderate as they are the last as well arfirst upon the beds. The best opinion seems to 
be that the males precede the females only to prepare the ground ; especially as they at 
that time assume an extraordinary roughness of scales and employ themselves constantly 
in scraping up gravel on which the spawn is subsequently deposited. Some, however, 
believe that the mere inclination to milt causes them to seek the proper position with- 
