FISHES AND FISHING IN SUNAPEE LAKE. ' 59 



The difficulty with which such value is determined among these 

 fishes, however, is well illustrated in the case of the white trout of 

 Sunapee Lake, which was at first and at the same time pronounced 

 by two eminent iclithyologists to be the common trout. Later by 

 one it was said to be the European saibling, and by the other the blue- 

 back trout of Rangeley Lake, some of which had been planted in the 

 lake. The latter at that time considered the "blueback" identical 

 with the saibling forms occurring from New England through Quebec, 

 Labrador, and Greenland, but possibly not indigenous to Sunapee 

 Lake. The other stoutly maintained that "the affinities of this form 

 are closer to the saibling by the way of an Atlantic steamer than by 

 way of Greenland and Iceland . ' ' The same form, however, was known 

 in Floods Pond, Me., long before the saiblmg eggs from Europe were 

 received in this country. Again, the second-mentioned authority later 

 pronounced the Sunapee white trout a species new to science and 

 described it under the name of Salvelinus aureolus, and the first 

 authority described two smaller forms as Salmo (Salvelinus) agassizii 

 and Salvelinus marstoni, respectively. On top of all this one of the 

 most distinguished ichthyologists in this country, and one with 

 whom the describer agreed, decided that S. agassizii was only a local 

 variety of the common trout (S. fontinalis), notwithstandmg not 

 only its difference in shape and color, but the fact that it was said 

 to possess teeth on the "liyoid bone," or "root of the tongue," a 

 difference that was supposed to distinguish the saibling forms from 

 the common charr (S . fontinalis) . 



Notwithstanding the absence of prominent structural differences, 

 there is a question whether it is not well to recognize slight differ- 

 ences of that kind in connection with those of size, color, and habits, 

 at least locally constant and fixed. It has been said that species 

 are not entities and that the term is only an expression of our igno- 

 rance. So it might be said of many other things and terms. The 

 writer can not subscribe to this view, but regards the use of specific 

 as well as other terms used in classification as expressive of what is 

 known. 



Classification is not wholly theoretical and of use to the taxono- 

 mist alone. It is of practical use to the fish culturist. It is of value 

 to him to know that one form attains only a small size and ascends 

 streams to spawn, and that another form reaches a weight of 6 to 8 

 pounds and spawns on shoals in the lake, and to have names by 

 which to distinguish them. From the fish-cultural standpoint, based 

 upon what is known of the fish, these two forms are or should be 

 regarded as distinct species in order that the fish-cultural distribu- 

 tion may be rational. But if the transfer of the one form from its 

 habitat to the habitat of the other results in the change of the structure, 

 color, and size of the fish to that of the occupant of the water to which 



