520 Memoir Sears Foundation for Marine Research 



probably does represent a separate subspecies (p. 519).*" Neither has my own rather 

 cursory examination brought to light any differences that seem taxonomically significant 

 between my Spitsbergen, Greenland, and North American specimens of alpinus and 

 others from Sakhalin Island, Gulf of Tartary, with which I have compared them. 



Numerical Abundance and Relation to Man. Attention has been called repeatedly 

 to the great abundance of the Arctic Charr off the stream mouths in Arctic America. 

 The famous explorer, Capt. James C. Ross, reported in 1835 ^^^ capture of 3,378 fish 

 ranging from 2 to 14 pounds in weight and averaging something more than 4 pounds, 

 off a stream in the Boothia Peninsula (5<5: Ivi, ftn.). Bryant described the "sea trout" 

 similarly as being so numerous in Komaktorvik Bay, northern Labrador, that "you 

 could almost walk across the rivers without wetting your feet. . . . They were only 

 about one or two feet apart all over the shoal places" (Kendall, ^^: 503); and Welch 

 has recently reported "incredible numbers" in the Sylvia Grinnell River, Frobisher 

 Bay, Baffin Island (7J: 14). 



In northeastern Labrador, 264,000 pounds of salted fish were marketed in the 

 Hopedale-Hebron district in 1948, and 224,620 pounds in 1953, corresponding to 

 something like 62,000—71,000 fish if these averaged between three and four pounds 

 each; and a single schooner took 79,200 pounds, or something like 20,000—26,000 

 fish, in Nachvak Bay between early July and mid-August in 1948 (2: 845). On the 

 coast of western Greenland, in 19 14, about 24,250 pounds of Arctic Charr, or 

 about 6,000 fish if these averaged four pounds, were netted at the head of one of 

 the fjords near Godthaab; and for Denmark Harbor, northeastern Greenland, they 

 were described by Johansen as being so numerous that "as many as 50—100 could be 

 taken in one net in one day" (^o: 669). 



It is no wonder that an excellent food, so abundant locally and so readily available 

 close inshore, should be an important item in the economy of the native inhabitants, 

 not only for human consumption but for dogfood as well. The reported catch, for ex- 

 ample, averaged about 125,620 pounds (salted) for the Hopedale-Hebron section 

 of Labrador for the lo-year period 1944— 1954, with maximum catches of 264,000 

 pounds and 224,620 pounds in 1948 and 1953, respectively (2: 845). On the north- 

 western Hudson Bay coast, gill nets yielded an average of about 150 pounds per 100 

 yards at a locality about 150 miles north of the Churchill River (62: 2). A yearly 

 commercial catch ranging between 100 and 800 barrels (2,200 and 176,000 pounds, 

 assuming the weight of a barrel to have been 220 pounds) has been reported for 

 western Greenland (jp: 71). And Yessipov reported a yearly catch ranging between 

 14 and 80 Russian tons {jg: d"^^ corresponding to 31,000—176,000 pounds,ii for 

 Novaya Zemlya. 



Between Hopedale and Hebron as a whole, the local stock of Arctic Charr did not 

 show any signs of depletion during the ten years covered by Andrews and Lear's report; 



10. On the Arctic coast of Alaska, malma is reported from as far East as Point Hope and Cape Lisburne near i66°W 

 (Evermann and Goldsborough, 21: 264), nominally even from Herschel Island, Arctic Canada {i39°VV), but with- 

 out supporting evidence as to identity. 



11. The Russian metric ton equals 2,204.6 pounds. 



