TAXONOMIC AND FISH-CULTURAL 



NOTES ON THE CHARS OR TROUTS 



OF NEW ENGLAND 



By William Converse Kendall, 

 Assistant, Bureau of Fisheries. 



I have no formal paper to present, but should like to 

 call your attention to a few matters pertaining to the 

 chars or "trouts" of New England, which include the 

 "brook trout" as their best known representative. 



Authorities differ regarding their geographical dis- 

 tribution, and whether or not the different forms should 

 be regarded as distinct species. They are mainly boreal 

 and of wide distribution in the northern hemisphere, as 

 a group extending entirely around the globe and north- 

 ward to even beyond the limits of open water. There are 

 southward extensions and more or less isolated occur- 

 rences as far as southern Europe and in the United 

 States to New England and northern California. The 

 brook trout, however, is found in the mountain sources 

 of some rivers as far south as Georgia and Alabama. 



The typical char of Europe is Salvelinus alpinus, which 

 is nominally represented in Greenland by Salvelinus stag- 

 nates and in the north Pacific by Salvelinus malma. 

 There are intermediate nominal species, however, which 

 are apparently so closely related that from descriptions 

 and scanty material it is difficult to decide where one 

 species leaves off and another begins. Some authorities 

 regard all or most of them as constituting one species 

 composed of various forms, each possessing character- 

 istics of merely local significance. 



The first two pictures shown you (demonstration) are 

 of the common lake trout from a small lake in western 

 Maine. In Maine, it is known as "togue" and in New 

 Hampshire and Vermont as "lunge" or "longe," and far- 

 ther west as "lake trout," "Mackinaw trout," etc. 



