14 THE SEA-TROUT 



own convenience, accept the systematist's division of the family into 

 four genera, and of the genus Salmo will perhaps readily agree to a 

 distinction being drawn between two species, namely, Salmo salar and 

 Salmo truita; but it will not interest him further to take cognisance of 

 minor distinctions, and discuss or dispute the existence or non 

 existence of variations of the species tnitta which may lead one 

 systematist to classify certain specimens as different species of Salmo 

 and another systematist to classify certain other specimens as other 

 species of Salmo, nor will he be much interested in whether there are 

 varieties of such alleged species, migratory or non-migratory, round- 

 tailed or square-tailed, plain or speckled. The systematist, for his 

 part, is ridden by the necessity of his point of view, and he discovers 

 m the genus Salmo first one species and then another, and thereafter 

 proceeds to find varieties and even sub-varieties in each. 



I think it is not improbable that, coupled with the confusion of 

 thought already alluded to, this industry of the systematist, in dividing 

 and sub-dividing the grouping of the subject of his study, has accounted 

 for a great deal of misunderstanding in the popular mind regarding the 

 sea-trout. For, consider, of the genus Salmo, while the authorities are 

 agreed that, in European waters at least, there are no varieties of the 

 species salar, in other words that there is only one salmon, yet of the 

 trout, trutia, there are endless varieties alleged, if they are not indeed 

 held to be other species of Sali>io. And, besides the migratory sea- 

 trout, Salmo trutta, one finds constant reference being made to Salmo 

 criox, Salmo canilmats, and Salmo albns as other migratory varieties 

 of truiia if not species of Salmo; and, besides Salmo fario, generally 

 and somewhat arbitrarily accepted as a non-migratory fish, one finds 

 everywhere references to Salmo ferox, Salmo levenensis, Salmo 

 nignpinuis and Salmo stomachicus as other non-migratory trout; and 

 even an estuarine trout has been differentiated by the name of Salmo 



