1893. | NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 147 
Such differences in individuals from the same locality would 
seem to impair the value of anatomical peculiarities as diagnostic 
marks. In fact, in a most able paper on the Saiblings, published 
in the American Angler, February 5, 1891, Professor Garman 
states that in foreign specimens examined by him the dentition 
differs, corresponding more or less nearly with that of the New 
Hampshire fish—that differences of age imply radical differences 
in teeth, fins, stomach, and especially gill-rakers—which latter, 
Professor Garman believes to be “most important in function 
early in life and to deteriorate with change to coarser food.”’ 
The deterioration consists in a distortion not alike in any two 
individuals; “the rakers curve and twist in every direction 
like a lot of writhing worms suddenly become rigid.’’ In old 
specimens, they lose their points and grow club-shaped. As to 
the number of gill-rakers, in saibling where Dr. Bean found 10 
and Professor Jordan 14 to 15, Professor Garman counted 14 
to 18. And in the New Hampshire charr, where the first found 
14 and the second 11 to 12, Professor Garman counted 13 to 
16. In our specimens, 18 were counted in each row. 
The external characteristics of the Sunapee fish, however, 
distinguish it conspicuously from the three other charrs of New 
England. Its graceful build, small and delicately shaped 
head, small mouth, excessively developed fins, more or less 
markedly emarginate caudal, spots without the blue areola, and 
unmottled back, at once separate it from the brook trout and 
link it as closely as its structural peculiarities with Austrian, 
British, and Swiss congeners. The nuptial coloration is gorgeous 
beyond example among our indigenous Salmonide, Through- 
out the spring and summer the back is dark sea-green, blending 
on the sides into a flashing silver, which in turn deepens below 
into a rich cream. But as the October pairing-time approaches, 
the fish is metamorphosed into a creature of indescribable 
brilliancy. The deep purplish blue of the back and shoulders 
now seems to dissolve into a dreamy sheen of amethyst, through 
which the inconspicuous pale lemon spots of midsummer flame 
out in points of yellow or vermilion fire ; while below the lateral 
line, all is dazzling orange. The fins catch the hue of the 
adjacent parts, and pectoral, ventral, anal, and lower lobe of 
caudal, are ribboned with a broad white margin. As in the case 
of the Windermere charr, these white margins of the fins are 
very conspicuous in specimens seen swimming in the water. 
There are great differences in intensity of general coloration, 
and the females are not usually as gaudily tinted as the males. 
The intermediate types and different depths of hue observable 
in an autumn school recall the public promenade in a West Indian 
