478 



AMERICAN FISHES. 



genus have not been sufificiently studied, it is impossible yet to make this 

 generalization. They are, emphatically, cold water fishes, thriving at a 

 temperature little above the freezing point, and in their period of greatest 

 vigor and perfection at the approach of winter, as is indicated by the fact 

 that at this time their spawning takes place. No fish of any kind has ever 

 been found nearer to the North Pole than the Char, a species, Salvelinus 

 arctiirits, having been discovered by the last English polar expedition in 

 12° north of the Arctic Circle. In the South of Europe its range is limited 

 by the Alps, and in this region its study has brought to light a very curious 

 fact which confirms still more strongly the idea just spoken of, that the 

 fish thrive the best in a very cold climate. In the extreme north and in 

 the extreme south this fish reaches its greatest perfection. 



THE OMBRE CHEVALIER OR SAIBLING. 



The Saibling has been propagated by German fish-culturists for a period 

 of ten years or more, and thrive magnificently in captivity. The hatch- 

 ery at Oussee, in Germany, produces yearly three or four hundred thousand 

 of artificially-brooded Saibling, and plants them in the neighboring lakes. 

 In the tanks at the late International Fishery Exhibition in Berlin were 

 exhibited many superb specimens of this fish, some of them over two feet 

 in length, and one of these was sent to the National Museum by Herr von 

 Behr, president of the Deutscher Fischeri Verein. 



In selecting a place in which to deposit the Saibling eggs received in 

 January, 1887, the Commissioner of Fisheries has endeavored to find a 

 lake as similar as possible in depth and temperature to the larger Swiss 

 lakes, and he has, therefore, sent them to Lake Winnipseogee, N. H. 

 Here the whole sixty thousand were planted, with the hope that placing so 

 large a number together in a lake of moderate size the experiment of intro- 



