18 KENDALL: NEW ENGLAND SALMONS. 



As previously shown, all of these fish are generically salmon, taxonomically speaking, 

 'Salmo.' But in common usage all but Salmo solar are 'trout.' 



The North American Atlantic salmon has always been regarded as specifically identical 

 with the European salmon, although as Prince (1899, p. Ixii) says, minor local peculiari- 

 ties are noticeable, indicating that in the British form the head is smaller and more 

 acuminate, and the body more gracefully attenuated both in the shoulder and the tail 

 region, than in the American fish. Whether these differences and any others that may 

 be present can be regarded as taxonomically specific depends much upon the viewpoint 

 of the taxonomist. The question of species and subspecies has been discussed in fore- 

 going pages, where my own view was indicated, to the effect that there were two kinds 

 of species, i.e., taxonomic species and natural species. A single species of the systematist 

 may be broad enough to comprise several, many, or all of the natural species. Smitt 

 (1893-1895) recognizes but one species of Salmo, each of the others, usually regarded as 

 species, by him being designated as forma. Some systematists have regarded some of 

 the formoe of Smitt as distinct species, others as subspecies or varieties. 



Except for convenience and uniformity it makes Uttle difference what the recognized, 

 more or less distinct forms, are called. It does not affect the natural system, which was 

 established by natural laws, not by nomenclatural rules. However, when this natural 

 system is interfered with by fishermen, legislatures, and fish culturists, due cognizance 

 and proper appreciation of the significance of these 'minor local peculiarities' are es- 

 sential. The classificationist often changes his mind and what is a species at one time 

 may not be at another, or vice versa. But these changes of opinion and names of the 

 fish do not change the fish. 



So, while taxonomically the European and American salmon are specifically identical, 

 there may exist sufficient natural 'minor local peculiarities' to constitute peculiar 

 American salmon problems, requiring for their solution somewhat different methods of 

 research than do the European problems. Even on the American coast there are minor 

 pecuharities of the habits and phenomena exhibited by the salmon, so that the problem 

 of one section of the coast may differ from that of another, as, for instance, in the Gulf 

 of St. Lawrence and on the coast of New England. 



For these reasons, to me it seems not only extremely unfortunate but fatal that so 

 much reUance has been placed upon the applicability of the results of investigations on 

 the other side of the ocean, to the conditions of the western Atlantic and so little done in 

 the way of independent investigation. Canada has made and is still making some effort 

 in that direction but in the United States almost nothing has been done in the past and 

 absolutely nothing is being done now, with the consequence that her Atlantic salmon 

 fishery is almost past history, and the salmon is verging on extinction. 



More than sixty years ago Atkins (1874, p. 327) wrote that data for a history of the 

 hfe of Maine salmon were so exceedingly scanty that, except for assistance afforded by 

 observations made in other coimtries, it would be largely an unguessed riddle. Atkins 

 was the pioneer and only competent observer then in New England who gave any 

 consideration to practical salmon investigation, and the results of his experiments. 



