I40 GJ^AV'S CHARR. 



size of a pea. These fish were known to Thompson, who referred the species to the Salmo 

 iimbla, Linnceus, and S. sahclinus of Donovan. Dr. Giinther, however, has clearly shown that 

 the species is distinct, and he named it after the late kind-hearted Dr. Gray, of the British 

 Museum. When GiAnther. published his account of this species in the Zoolog-ical Society's 

 Proceedings, the female fish was known only by a short notice of Mr. Thompson. I received 

 six female specimens nearly all with a few ova within them, on the 29th. of November, 1878, 

 from Mr. Scott; the ova I examined were two lines in diameter. On the 19th. of November, 

 I received from the same source, five specimens which proved to be all males. Of the young 

 of this species I believe nothing is known. Like the other kinds of Charr, the Melvin species 

 is an inhabitant of the deep parts of the lake ; a few are now and then caught with a fly 

 in the summer months, but little is seen of them until their spawning instincts lead them to 

 seek the shallower parts of the lake, at which time they have been taken in cartloads. Mr. 

 Scott had considerable difficulty in procuring me the specimens ; he had to send to a man at 

 the other end of the lake, who, owing to the storms, had great trouble in setting his nets. 



The following is a description of a male specimen received by me from Lough Melvin 

 on the 19th. of November. Total length ten inches and three quarters; greatest depth two 

 inches and three quarters ; length of head two inches and a quarter ; pectoral fin two inches 

 and a quarter, not covered by the operculum ; greatest height of dorsal one inch and seven 

 eighths; length of ventral and anal one and five eighths; length of the pointed lobes of the 

 caudal fin two inches and one eighth, shortest caudal ray one inch. Maxillary feeble, extending 

 to the posterior orbit ; teeth small. In colour the head is brown ; shoulders and back glossy 

 purplish brown down to the lateral line, which rises from the top of the gill-cover, slightly 

 descending, then straight to the middle of the caudal fin, towards which the brown changes 

 to silvery; belly delicate roseate. Above the lateral line there are a number of very small 

 round pink spots, very indistinct. Below lateral line these Salmon-coloured spots are larger 

 and more distinct. Eye large ; irides white ; pra^operculum crescent shaped, rounding off into 

 a lower limb ; suboperculum extending beyond operculum ; dorsal fin brown ; inner base of 

 pectoral tinged with red; ventral reddish brown, inner rays red; anal brown; tail brown, with 

 tinge of olive. Adipose fin membranous, brown; pectoral acutely pointed, a little longer than 

 the head in some examples, and extending as far as, or even slightly beyond the origin of 

 the dorsal fin. I can discover no difference externally in the female from the male of the 

 same size, and caught about the same time. This is a beautiful fish, both in delicacy of 

 colouring and in symmetry of form ; the scales are more conspicuous than in other species 

 of Charr. Though somewhat similar, both in form and colour, to Cole's Charr, the species 

 last described, it is readily distinguished from it by the excessive length of the pointed 

 pectoral fin, which in Cole's fish does not nearly equal the length of the head ; there is another 

 important difference in the form of the pyloric caeca: in Gray's Charr, the specimen before 

 me, these appendages measure about three eighths of an inch ; in Cole's they are about one 

 eighth of an inch, some of them being merely small cylindrical capsules. 



The fin-ray formula is 



Dorsal 13. 

 Pectoral 13. 

 Ventral 9. 

 Anal 12. 



