VENDACE  , the name of a

British freshwater fish of the genus Coregonus, of which two other species are indigenous in the fresh waters of the British Islands, the gwyniad and the pollan . The vendace (C. vandesius) is restricted to some lochs in Dumfriesshire, Scotland; it is, however, very similar to a species (C. albula) which inhabits some of the large and deep lakes of northern Europe . From its general resemblance to a dace the French name of the latter, vandoise, was transferred to it at the period when French was the language of the court and aristocracy of Scotland . So great is the local celebrity of the fish that a story has been invented ascribing to Mary Queen of Scots the merit of having introduced it into the Lochmaben lochs . It is considered a great delicacy, and on favourable days when the shoals rise to the surface, near the edges of the loch, great numbers may be taken . ' It spawns in November . In length it scarcely exceeds 8 in .