A Guide to the Study of Fishes, Volume 2 (of 2)

by David Starr Jordan

Closely allied to Coregonus williamsoni is the pilot-fish, shad-waiter, roundfish, or Menomonee whitefish (Coregonus quadrilateralis). This species is found in the Great Lakes, the Adirondack region, the lakes of New Hampshire, and thence northwestward to the Yukon, abounding in cold deep waters, its range apparently nowhere coinciding with that of Coregonus williamsoni.

Fig. 50.—Whitefish, Coregonus clupeiformis Mitchill. Ecorse, Mich.

The common whitefish (Coregonus clupeiformis) is the largest in size of the species of Coregonus, and is unquestionably the finest as an article of food. It varies considerably in appearance with age and condition, but in general it is proportionately much deeper than any of the other small-mouthed Coregoni. The adult fishes develop a considerable fleshy hump at the shoulders, which causes the head, which is very small, to appear disproportionately so. The whitefish spawns in November and December, on rocky shoals in the Great Lakes. Its food was ascertained by Dr. P. R. Hoy to consist chiefly of deep-water crustaceans, with a few mollusks, and larvæ of water insects. "The whitefish," writes Mr. James W. Milner, "has been known since the time of the earliest explorers as preeminently a fine-flavored fish. In fact there are few table-fishes its equal. To be appreciated in its fullest excellence it should be taken fresh from the lake and broiled. Father Marquette, Charlevoix, Sir John Richardson—explorers who for months at a time had to depend upon the whitefish for their staple article of food—bore testimony to the fact that they never lost their relish for it, and deemed it a special excellence that the appetite never became cloyed with it." The range of the whitefish extends from the lakes of New York and New England northward to the Arctic Circle. The "Otsego bass" of Otsego Lake in New York, celebrated by De Witt Clinton, is a local form of the ordinary whitefish.

Allied to the American whitefish, but smaller in size, is the Lavaret, Weissfisch, Adelfisch, or Weissfelchen (Coregonus lavaretus), of the mountain lakes of Switzerland, Germany, and Sweden. Coregonus kennicotti, the muksun, and Coregonus nelsoni, the humpback whitefish, are found in northern Alaska and in the Yukon. Several other related species occur in northern Europe and Siberia.

Another American species is the Sault whitefish, Lake Whiting or Musquaw River whitefish (Coregonus labradoricus). Its teeth are stronger, especially on the tongue, than in any of our other species, and its body is slenderer than that of the whitefish. It is found in the upper Great Lakes, in the Adirondack region, in Lake Winnipeseogee, and in the lakes of Maine and New Brunswick. It is said to rise to the fly in the Canadian lakes. This species runs up the St. Mary's River, from Lake Huron to Lake Superior, in July and August. Great numbers are snared or speared by the Indians at this season at the Sault Ste. Marie.

In the breeding season the scales are sometimes thickened or covered with small warts, as in the male Cyprinidæ.

Argyrosomus, the Lake Herring.—In the genus Argyrosomus the mouth is larger, the premaxillary not set vertical, but extending forward on its lower edge, and the body is more elongate and more evenly elliptical. The species are more active and predaceous than those of Coregonus and are, on the whole, inferior as food.

The smallest and handsomest of the American whitefish is the cisco of Lake Michigan (Argyrosomus hoyi). It is a slender fish, rarely exceeding ten inches in length, and its scales have the brilliant silvery luster of the mooneye and the ladyfish.

The lake herring, or cisco (Argyrosomus artedi), is, next to the whitefish, the most important of the American species. It is more elongate than the others, and has a comparatively large mouth, with projecting under-jaw. It is correspondingly more voracious, and often takes the hook. During the spawning season of the whitefish the lake herring feeds on the ova of the latter, thereby doing a great amount of mischief. As food this species is fair, but much inferior to the whitefish. Its geographical distribution is essentially the same, but to a greater degree it frequents shoal waters. In the small lakes around Lake Michigan, in Indiana and Wisconsin (Tippecanoe, Geneva, Oconomowoc, etc.), the cisco has long been established; and in these waters its habits have undergone some change, as has also its external appearance. It has been recorded as a distinct species, Argyrosomus sisco, and its excellence as a game-fish has been long appreciated by the angler. These lake ciscoes remain for most of the year in the depths of the lake, coming to the surface only in search of certain insects, and to shallow water only in the spawning season. This periodical disappearance of the cisco has led to much foolish discussion as to the probability of their returning by an underground passage to Lake Michigan during the periods of their absence. One author, confounding "cisco" with "siscowet," has assumed that this underground passage leads to Lake Superior, and that the cisco is identical with the fat lake trout which bears the latter name. The name "lake herring" alludes to the superficial resemblance which this species possesses to the marine herring, a fish of quite a different family.