566 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



ply of food and the water is clear and especially cold. Tlie best-flavored 

 tront are found therefore in thewaters situated the highest, even up to the 

 snow-fields ; but where a certain water contains trout of particular appear- 

 ance and flavor, scarcely two are found alike. The trout spawn, as it 

 appears, exclusively in running water, especially in brooks which empty 

 into a lake or larger river in which they stay, and then press towards 

 the head- waters as far as they are able to advance. There is, however, 

 a theory that they also spawn in still water ; but about this there is no 

 positive knowledge. 



The RED CHAR {Salmo salvelinus and alpinus) lives in fresh water from 

 the level of the sea up to a height of about GOO metres above it. In 

 southeastern Xorway it is a rare fish, since it seldom appears at the sur- 

 face of the water, and is not easily caught with the imi)lement usually 

 employed to catch the trout — the artificial fly. In western ISTorway, 

 on the contrary, it appears to be much more common, shows itself more 

 plentifully, and is caught by the fly in greater numbers, than the 

 trout. How far north this apjflies is unknown to me, but it is at any 

 rate the case as far as Troiidhjen. With regard to flavor the chars vary 

 as much as the trout. In southeastern Norway they have as a rule a 

 finer flavor than the trout ; especially in certain waters in western and 

 northern Norway it falls far below this in flavor. 



How far the char can thrive is at present, so far as is known, not 

 determined. They appear to thrive best in deep, cool waters, with the 

 uniform afflux from bottom springs or brooks. It is strictly a lake 

 fish ; it spawns in the same water and does not ascend the brooks 

 which empty into or flow out from it ; at any rate not here in southeast- 

 ern Norway. 



It is a common assumption that the char and the trout do not agree 

 well in the same water. The statement has been made that when the char 

 is introduced into water where only trout were found before, the abun- 

 dance of these was diminished. Although the char certainly may be re- 

 garded as a voracious fish like the trout, it ajipears, however, to judge 

 from its whole structure, to be so in a less degree than the trout. The 

 theory of a direct war between the adult fishes of both races mutually 

 is thus untenable, neither can this reputed opinion be explained. It has 

 been supposed that the char destroys the trout eggs and young with 

 greater voracity than the trout consumes the char's. This statement 

 appears to me entirely untenable. The trout spawns in brooks wher- 

 ever it can reach them, and its young remain in them in their tender 

 youth ; while the char never frequents the brooks. It can thus not do any 

 harm to these eggs or young of the trout. The char, on the contrary, 

 spawns in the very water where its eggs and young are entirely ex})osed 

 to the attack of the trout, and it refuses them certainly just as little as 

 other fish eggs and young, its own included. The relation is thus rather 

 the opposite of what is suj)pose(J- But whatever may be the relation in 

 this respect, and even if the supposition were well founded, the admitted 



