254 THE CHARS. 



for that season. Another name, the Gilt Char, has also been 

 sometimes applied to this variety, on the slight supposition of 

 its occasionally having a gilded appearance. 



Pennant had examined some of these fishes, and although he 

 noticed some important differences among them, both of form 

 and habit, yet he could not decide finally on the presence of 

 any essential distinction, so that his account of the Chars is 

 confined to what he believed to be a single species. Fleming 

 is of a different opinion from the forementioned writers, and 

 describes as distinct species what he calls the Torgoch, which 

 is his Salmo sahelinus, and the Case Char, which he calls 

 S. alpinus ; but he remarks, "Though the observations of 

 Donovan have advanced considerably the history of this species, 

 (the Case Char,) and the Torgoch, there is yet wanting more 

 complete elucidation of their characters and manners," In the 

 first edition of his "History of British Fishes" Mr. Yarrell 

 was disposed to favour the opinion of Dr. Fleming; but this 

 was afterwards changed, and although the figures of apparently 

 different species are still given, the belief is expressed that 

 they are only casual variations of a single one. This fluctuation 

 of opinion among eminent naturalists may be received as a 

 proof of considerable resemblance which at least some of the 

 Chars bear to each other, as it is also of a proneness to 

 variation in them both of shape and colour; which latter, as 

 we shall see, forms a considerable character of this family of 

 fishes; and to what extent these variations of opinion have 

 influenced the minds of the commissioners appointed by royal 

 authority to collect information on the subject of the Salmon 

 fisheries in the year 1861, will appear from a note in their 

 recommendations of what in future should be the state of the 

 law; in which they seem not to be aware of even the probability 

 of there being more than a single species of Char in the 

 United Kingdom, and this they say in England is found only 

 in the lake district of Cumberland and Westmoreland, where 

 their spawning season extends from October to March. Acting 

 on this theory, and connecting it with their views of the 

 Salmon fishery, they are thus led to recommend that it shall 

 be forbidden to take Chars after the beginning of September, 

 which is, in fact, to render it unlawful to catch them at the 

 only season when the fishery can be conducted with profit. 



