150 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [Mar. 13 
spots, there is endless variety. Some forms have none ; some, 
large spots ; others, small—yellow, orange and red—and singu- 
larly, in certain species, each spot is surrounded by a white 
ring or halo. The fins take their color from the back and sides, 
and have the broad white band. The foreign saibling is 
gregarious like the Sunapee form ; lives similarly on crusta- 
ceans, worms and fish-food, and seeks the deepest and coldest 
waters. 
The greater the altitude, the more intense the coloration and 
the smaller the fish. In Lake Zug, the saibling run eight or 
nine to the pound; in Lake Geneva, they are said to attain a 
weight of over twenty pounds. The flesh is white or red, which, 
however, makes no difference in the flavor. The foreign saib- 
ling is taken in nets, or with hook and line ; it is eaten fresh or 
smoked. 
Colonel Hodge has attempted to prove a dissimilarity between 
the German saibling and the Sunapee charr by crossing each 
with our common brook trout, and noticing differences in the 
markings of the resulting fry. He writes me that the eggs of 
the cross between the German saibling and our brook trout are 
larger than those of the cross between the Sunapee Aureolus 
and the brook trout, and that there are conspicuous differences 
in the fry of the two hybrids, both of which are fertile. Cross- 
ing our brook trout, with other forms of the foreign saibling, 
would certainly give different results again ; so the experiments 
of Colonel Hodge cannot be regarded as conclusive, beyond 
establishing the fact that the Aureolus of Sunapee is in no way 
connected with the particular form of German saibling sent to New 
Hampshire in 1881 ; but this is a most important fact in the 
induction of its aboriginality to New England. Colonel Hodge 
further states another supposed difference: ‘‘ The aureolus 
does not seek the streams to spawn ; the saibling does.’’ But 
the saibling does not always spawn in streams ; the rule is the 
other way. 
At Windermere, the charr spawn both on the rocky bed of 
the Brathay, and in the lake. Schroeder, in his ‘‘ Katechismus 
der Kunstlichen Fischzucht,” expressly states that the saibling 
in October and November ascends from the depths in which it 
usually lives, and spawns off sandy shores in the lakes. Pro- 
fessors Benecke and Dalmer describe great schools of fish 
spawning in October or later, even as late as January and 
March, on sand or gravel near the shores, The Sunapee fish, 
then, simply follows the practice of its European relatives. 
Finally, there can be no doubt as to the economic value of 
this new fish. It is one of the most prolific of our salmonids, 
