568 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



cliar ill the same water, since it not merely on its own account is well 

 worth cultivation, but also because its young are excellent food for the 

 larger trout, which the char on its part cannot injui-e. How high it 

 will thrive we have no experience of; the highest place known to me, 

 where it is planted and thrives remarkably, lies about 900 metres above 

 the sea. It appears thus not absurd to suppose that it will also thrive 

 under conditions otherwise favorable. But if one does not wish to make 

 this a special object of cultivation, and will regularly hatch out and 

 raise a proper number of young in i^roportion to the area of water which 

 he may have control of, he should, however, not neglect to stock the 

 water with it as a contribution to the food of other fishes. It will in 

 this respect possibly prove to be a kind of fish that will thrive highest 

 above its hitherto common place of resort. 



It might, perhaps, be supposed that the i>lanting of the gwiuiad in 

 such places where the already indigenous fish, the trout, finds ^o rich a 

 supply of food that it does not devour all of it, and thus does not need 

 any kinds of smaller fish or young fish as additional food, would efiect an 

 unnecessary comiietition about food between the gwiniad and the trout, 

 and thereby a diminished profit from the fishery as. a whole. That this 

 possibly might become so by thickly stocking with both species together 

 cannot be contested. In such a case one obtains restricted jilanting in 

 the aggregate. But I should, however, think that rearing the gwiniad 

 by the side of the trout, whereby a variety in fish-food becomes possible 

 in places where they have hitherto been confined exclusively to trout, 

 will prove a source of real profit. 



The Grayling {Thy mallus vulgaris) has hitherto been confined to the 

 same localities as the red char in the eastern part of the country. It is 

 not found westward of the rivers of Laugen, Yormen, and Glommen^ 

 and the tributaries falling into these. It resembles the red char more 

 closely than the trout in form, color, and flavor. It thrives particularly 

 in cold clear waters with afiiux of larger brooks or rivulets, with a strong 

 or even rapid current, against which it at certain times of the year ad- 

 vances, on which account also it is called, in certain places, current- 

 grayling. There appears to be good ground for supposing that it wiU 

 thrive iu suitable places as well as the red char: but as far as is known 

 no attempt has been made to introduce it into other lakes or ri^-ers than 

 those in which it naturally exists, neither has it, so far as is known, 

 hitherto been the object of hatching. It has, upon the whole, been less 

 noticed, just as it is comparatively rarer, than the red char, wherefore I 

 have taken it into consideration after this. The flesh of the fish is sav- 

 ory and very wholesome ; it takes the artificial fly readily ; and, finally, it 

 spawns in the spring, while the fishes previously named spawn in autumn 

 and winter. The first-named quality recommends it as an article of food 

 for cultivation in the same degree as the red char ; the other recommends 

 the grayling as a game fish for every one who, along with the jirofit of 

 fish cultivation, also prizes fly-fishing as a pastime ; and the last-named 



