The spectra of quantized chaotic billiards from the point of view of scattering theory are discussed. It is shown how the spectral and resonance density functions both fluctuate about a common mean. A semiclassical treatment explains this in terms of classical scattering trajectories and periodic orbits of the Poincaré scattering map. It is shown that this formalism provides an alternative derivation and a new interpretation of Gutzwiller’s periodic orbits sum for the spectral density. Moreover, it is a convenient starting point for a derivation of a Riemann–Siegel ‘‘look alike’’ expression for the secular equation in terms of periodic orbits of finite length.