142 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [Mar. 13 
either as a descendant of some of the Salmonoide introduced 
into Sunapee in 1867 and succeeding years by the Fish Com- 
missioners, or as a cross between one of these forms and the 
native brook trout. In no other way could they account for its 
sudden appearance in large and steadily increasing numbers. 
A theory of descent from blue-backs imported from Maine in 
1879 by Commissioners Webber and Powers as a food supply 
for the larger Salmonida, was soon set aside on the ground that 
the little trout of the Rangeleys rarely exceeds one-quarter 
pound in weight, and could not possibly, even if supplied with 
an abundance of appropriate food and exposed to the tonic 
effects of a favorable change of waters, ever attain the alder- 
manic proportions of the Sunapee charr, Moreover, Dr. Bean, 
in a scholarly paper, published in the American Angler and the 
Forest and Stream, February, 1888, called attention to six essen- 
tial points of difference between the Sunapee trout and the 
blue-back, thus effectually disposing of the argument. 
The theory of natural hybridism found few supporters among 
ichthyologists, and no introduction of charr other than the 
Rangeley Salvelinus fontinalis and Salvelinus Oquassa could be 
proved, as none had been officially reported. From the first, 
Colonel Hodge, believing in the existence of a similar charr in 
the Province of Quebec, championed the theory of aboriginality, 
ingeniously combating every objection made to it :— 
I. That so conspicuous a food-fish could not for one hundred 
years have escaped the notice of anglers, poachers, and 
scientists alike, by showing how the habits of the white trout 
protected it from observation and persecution, it being rarely 
seen except late in October on mid-lake reefs, that is, at a time 
of year when angling was out of season, and in localities 
dangerous or impossible of access in the old-style unseaworthy 
flat-bottoms during the autumnal wind storms. The secluded 
habits of the European charrs explain in like manner the 
obscurity which bas so long involved the life history of those 
fishes. Colonel Hodge further claims that ordinary fishermen 
knew no difference between the white and the brook trout, a 
thing not to be wondered at when such authorities as Garman 
and Bean failed at first to separate the forms. 
II, The more serious objection that no cause can be shown 
why the white trout, if a native, should suddenly increase in 
the lake, so as to attract the attention of hundreds of observers, 
and be taken literally by the ton, Commissioner Hodge meets 
with the following clever theory: Before the introduction of 
black bass, about twenty-five years ago, yellow perch swarmed 
in the lake, and there being then no smelt food, subsisted 
