THE LAND-LOCKED SALMON, OR WANANISHE. 



BY J. G. AYLWIN CREIGHTON. 



Synonyms. — Salmo Salar, variety Seliago; Sebago Salmon; Sebago Trout; 

 Schoodic Salmon; Land-locked Salmon; Silfverlax; Salmo Argenteiis; Win- 

 anishe, Wananishe, or Ouinaniche. 



IT used to be an article of faith with naturahsts and anglers 

 that a Salmon — -using the word in its every-day sense, 

 not in the technical one of Salmo, which generic name 

 includes many very different fish, some of them merely Trout — 

 is a salt-water fish which comes into fresh-water rivers to 

 spawn, and then returns to the sea, or, to use a convenient 

 word, is anadromous. Hence the specific designation Salar. 

 The older British writers on the SabtionidcB seem never to 

 have heard of any exception to this rule, or else, in referring 

 to the question whether Salmon can make their home in fresh 

 water, answer it with a decided negative; in a few instances 

 quoting cases of fish dying under the experiment. 



Yet nothing in the range of observed facts relating to the 

 Salmonid<£ — as to which the great modern Engli-sh ichthyolo- 

 gist, Gunther, observes that "The unusual attention which 

 has been given to their study has revealed an almost greater 

 amount of unexplained facts than of satisfactory solutions of 

 the questions raised " — is better established now than the 

 existence in certain parts of the United States, Canada, and 

 Sweden of a Salmon which inhabits lakes, and is anatomically 

 indistinguishable from the salt-water Salmon. The Land- 

 locked Salmon of Maine have been well known for over fifty 

 years. Mr. C. G. Atkins, superintendem of the Schoodic 

 6 81 



