Chapter IX: Cisco

I record a description of this fish for the purpose of calling to it the attention of those who have the requisite knowledge to determine what it is, and beg naturalists, if it is still undescribed, to leave it its own pretty, original name. It inhabits Lake Ontario, near its outlet into the St. Lawrence, and is taken in the neighborhood of Cape Vincent. It is one of the _Coregonus_ group, but neither the White-fish, Attihawmeg, _Coregonus albus_, nor the Otsego Bass, _Coregonus Otsego_. It may be related to the _Coregonus clupeiformis_, although differing much from the meagre description of the latter in the accounts copied one from another, of Dr. Mitchill, Lesueur, and Dr. De Kay.

The Cisco is not so compressed nor deep as the white-fish; the teeth are more delicate and velvety, and in the gill arches are a few long, distinct, slim teeth or bristles. The mouth is smaller than that of the white-fish, and when open, perfectly square. The scales are similar to those on the latter, but the tail is so delicate as to make counting the rays mere guesswork; the point of the tongue is hard, the back colored green, the sides silver white, while the first ray of the pectoral, ventral and anal fins is darkish. The first dorsal has ten soft rays, the second is adipose; the pectoral has fourteen soft rays, the ventral eleven, the anal twelve, and the caudal, as well as I could count them, fourteen. It is a very beautiful and delicate fish, more so even than the white-fish.

The cisco is taken at Cape Vincent, with the eel-fly baited on a small hook and dibbled along the top of the water, and is said not to notice any artificial fly. I unfortunately had no chance to try, though I saw them rising and taking the natural fly readily. They do not rise with the rush of a salmon or trout, never springing out of water, and simply show their heads as they seize their prey. The eel-fly is a fat and sluggish fly, and it may be that the fish rising slowly, as they naturally do, would discover the deception even if an imitation eel-fly were offered to them. This fly, as I have elsewhere observed, is similar, both in appearance and habits, to the famous European May-fly.

The fish known as the lake herring, _salmo clupeiformis_, although very similar in appearance, has certain distinctive characteristics; for instance, there are minute teeth on the tongue, and the fin-rays, as I make them, are--

D. 12; P. 16; V. 11; A. 11; C. 19-5/5; B. 9.

According to Lesueur--

D. 12; P. 16; V. 12; A. 14; C. 19-5/5.

In the lake herring I also found the first ray of the dorsal the longest, although Lesueur says it is simple and short; the tail is deeply forked. The dorsal terminates nearly opposite the ventrals, and the second dorsal is opposite the centre of the anal.