CHAR 105 



partaking of the colour of the part of the body on 

 which it rests, is of a pale pinkish white ; ventrals 

 in the brighter-coloured individuals with a white 

 marginal line ; in the duller-coloured examples this 

 does not appear, but all have the two or three first 

 rays and their connecting membrane dusky, and the 

 remainder red and of a deeper hue than on any part 

 of the body ; anal fin partaking at the base of the 

 colour of the part of the body to which it is attached, 

 dusky towards the tip ; white margin to the first ray 

 in some of the brighter-coloured specimens only ; 

 caudal fin grey, of different shades in all, in the 

 brightest individual varied with red, which appears 

 at the base of the lower lobe. 



" The males are generally more gracefully formed 

 than the females, and most of them rather brighter 

 in colour, but there is no external character so 

 strikingly different as to lead to a certain knowledge 

 of the sex ; some of the largest-finned are females — 

 in the Loch Grannoch char the males had much the 

 larger fins and the sex was as unerringly distin- 

 guished by the colour as by the form, the accuracy 

 of the distinction in both cases being established by 

 dissection. 



" The milt and roe were in these specimens ready 

 for exclusion. The remains of food were found in 

 only one out of the twelve specimens, and appeared 

 to be a portion of the case of a caddis worm. The 

 vertebrae, as reckoned in two specimens, male and 

 female, were sixty in number. 



" Lord Cole informs me that this fish is called 



* Freshwater Herring ' at Lough Melvin, although 



in the same part of the country the term ' char ' is 



applied to the more ordinary state of the species as 



8 



