CHAR 



By the RIGHT HON. SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, BART. 



SEATED one day in the cool dining-room of a Norwegian hotel 

 discussing a first-rate middagsmad, or midday meal, an English 

 clergyman next me remarked upon the excellence of a dish of 

 trout whereof we were partaking. 

 *' Excellent indeed," quoth I, " but they happen not to be trout." 

 As he seemed to think me a very ignorant person, probably a 

 Cockney tourist, and repeated the assurance that they were trout, I took 

 the head of one of these fishes and showed him that the vomer or palatal 

 bone bore teeth only on the fore-part, proving them to be char; whereas 

 had they been common trout, they would have borne teeth along the 

 entire length of that bone. 



The genus Salmo is divided according to its dentition into three 

 groups or subgenera; indeed, some modern systematists consider the 

 difference between them to be so marked and permanent as to justify 

 their recognition as three distinct genera, namely, (1) Salmo, including 

 all forms of salmon and trout; (2) Salvelinus, comprising the chars; 

 and (3) Hucho, consisting only of one species, the Danubian huchen. 



In salmon and trout the vomer is armed with teeth along its whole 

 length, although only those on the head or fore-part are permanent, the 

 others being apt to drop out in mature and aged fish. In the char, the 

 vomer is proportionately shorter than that bone in the mouths of salmon 

 and trout; a deep transverse depression or groove marks off the head 

 from the rest of the bone, and the teeth are all set in a cluster upon the 

 head. The huchen (Hucho hucho) of the Danube is a fine fish, sometimes 

 approaching the dimensions of Atlantic salmon, but not migrating to 

 the sea. It was formerly classed as a char, owing to the shaft of the vomer 

 being toothless, and the teeth being confined to the fore -part, which, as in 

 the char, is marked off by a transverse groove; but these teeth, instead of 

 being set in a cluster, are arranged in a single, regular rank, which has 

 been held to constitute the hucho as a distinct group or subgenus. 



The true chars are further differentiated from other salmonoid fish 

 by the brilliant scarlet and orange hues which, usually more or less 

 present on the flanks and belly throughout the year, become more intense 

 on the approach of the spawning season. 

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