CHAR— BRITISU FORM. 241 



Coniston, thon termed Thurston Water, were similarly ascribed to the monks of 

 Furness Abbey, who were said to have brought them from near the Alps. But 

 as this legend attributed their introduction to only about two centuries since, 

 we are met by a statement which was made three or four years ago of the 

 discovery of a MS. bearing date a.d. 1535, wherein a certain Jacques Tallour 

 was permitted " to catch and tol the fayre fish charr in Wynandermcr, and also 

 hys sonne Gerald," but we have no evidence of the genuineness of the document. 

 However, Isaak Walton, in 1G53, mentioned the existence of char in Winander 

 IMere, and did not refer to it as being of any recent introduction. 



Habits. — A gregarious and usually deep swimming fish, but in warm weather 

 coming nearer to the surface ; they are mostly shy of taking a bait and feed 

 largely at night-time. The common food of the trout has been found in their 

 stomachs, while when in confinement they can be similarly fed. They appear to 

 require very pure and mostly deep water for their residence, but are found in some 

 Irish lakes which are not of great depth. They feed upon aquatic insects and 

 fish, and appear to be most lively during the night-time. 



They have been observed to have disappeared from some lakes due to the 

 entrance therein of poisonous matter, as from lead mines,* but in other localities 

 Avhere no such deleterious substances have obtained access, as Loch Leven, and 

 some of the Irish loughs, where they have likewise disappeared, it has been sug- 

 gested that such may partly be dependent upon the diminution or disappearance 

 of such entomostraca as previously formed their natural food. When half or full 

 grown they do not bear confinement well,t but may be kept for a short period 

 in troughs through which a supply of water flows. Thompson, in 1835, observed 

 that they were thus kept at Coniston Water at the hotel and sold at 10*^ a dozen. 



O., in Lo^ulotis Mag. Nat. Hist, v, p. 317, observed of the Windermere fish that 

 " about the beginning of April, when the warm weather comes in, they retire into 

 the deep parts of the lake, where their principal food is the minnow, of which they 

 are very fond," while they are captured with spinning bait. 



As food. — The flesh of these fishes varies ; in some localities it is pink in colour, 



* It has been stated to descend to the sea, and it has been asserted that some were captured 

 there or at the mouths of rivers on the Welsh coast after they had been driven out of Llanberris 

 by poisoned waters. Further evidence on this point is required. 



Yarrell asserted that in the autumn of 1839 several char of some half pound weight each were 

 placed in Lily Mere, a secluded sheet of water not far from Sedburgh in Yorkshire, and the 

 property of the Uptons, of Ingmire Hall. It was further said that some twelve months later two 

 of these fish, weighing 2 lb. each, were caught with the tly, admirably fed and well shaped, in the 

 pink of condition. They were served at the Queen Dowager's table at the Rose and Crown 

 Hotel, Ky. Lonsdale, where doubtless Her Majesty was staying. A writer in The Field 

 remarked that " the story may be true or not. Lily Mere, from its small size and general 

 surroundings, is not a likely place in which char would grow to so very unusual a size in so short 

 a time. Probably the so-called char were nothing else than two fine trout with which the mere 

 was then v/ell stocked, and is so in a lesser degree at the present day." 



t " Some years ago a number of char were placed in Potter Fell Tarn, some four miles from 

 Kendal, a sheet of water situate at a great height above the sea level, and abounding with trout. 

 Occasionally a char or two were caught with the fly, and rigorously returned to the water. But 

 they made no headway, and Mr. Banks, the owner, tells me that not one has been caught for some 

 years. However, a strange occurrence following this attempt at acclimatization did take place. 

 Some twelve months after the fish were placed in the tarn, an angler, below Burneside, on the Kent, 

 took from the river, with fly, a nice char of half a pound weight. No doubt this was an escaped 

 fish from the Potter Fell, and there is a narrow mountain beck which runs direct from that tarn 

 into the Kent. There was no mistaking the identity of the fish, for it was brought to Kendal 

 alive, given to Mr. Banks, who returned it in due course to the place from which it had strayed, 

 quite two miles away. The fact of this fish taking an artificial fly in a stream suggests that the 

 char might thrive if introduced into some of our rivers. There is no proof that it is destructive 

 to other fish, and though its nature is that of a bottom or at least a mid-water feeder, the 

 instances of Hawes Water, Goats Water, and of this one in the Kent, are presumptive proof that, 

 with altered conditions, the char adapts itself to circumstances, and feeds freely at the surface of 

 the water. The fact is, both trout and char ' feed ' where they find the choicest morsels, and 

 these so-called ' bad-rising ' trout in certain lakes are only such because their epicurean tastes 

 are better suited by the food found below the surface. In other instances than the one mentioned 

 are char caught by rod and line in the streams flowing into or out of the various lakes they 

 inhabit, and though usually, not always, stray specimens, still they ailford proof of the possibility 

 of the race becoming settled inhabitants of at least some of our rivers " (R. B. h., Field). 



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