CHAR 



even in a lake containing thousands of char. Lakes, however, vary in this 

 respect. I believe that small char are pretty frequently taken with fly in 

 Loch Doon, Ayrshire, and in Hawes Water, Cumberland, while large 

 baskets are sometimes filled by worm-fishers in the Welsh lynns. 



Now as to the question of classification. In 1866 Dr Gonther distin- 

 guished five separate species of British char, and this number has been 

 multiplied to fifteen by the latest authority, Mr C. Tate Regan, who, like 

 Dr Ganther, has enjoyed the advantage of studying the question as an 

 official in the Natural History Department of the British Museum. 



"I am quite aware," writes Mr Tate Regan, "that some authors 

 contend that there is only one species of char in our islands, whilst 

 some would not even recognize the various forms as distinct races. 

 Certainly our species of char are recent species and geographical 

 species; they are of quite another nature from widely distributed forms 

 such as the pike or roach, which have probably persisted unchanged 

 during the whole of the time that the evolution of the Sahelini has 

 proceeded. Nevertheless, they differ from each other in characters 

 which are used to define species in other groups, and which may, 

 therefore, be regarded as specific."* 

 The definition of species must always be a difficult problem, and I 

 submit with much diffidence the considerations which prevent me yield- 

 ing assent to Mr Tate Regan's classification of British char, founded 

 as it is upon variations which have not been proved to be permanent. 

 Pike, roach, perch and other fish which retain a uniformity of structure 

 and appearance, belong to orders more highly organized than the 5a/- 

 monidce, which are peculiarly plastic and susceptible to the influence 

 of environment. There is far greater external difference between trout 

 {S. fario) from different waters, and even between trout taken from 

 different parts of the same lake, than exists between the varieties of char 

 which it is sought to recognize as species. No British fish, except the 

 Coregoni, a branch of the salmon family, has been so long and so severely 

 segregated as the char. The presence of this fish in its several varie- 

 ties in those lakes where it is found probably dates from that remote 

 period (Mr Tate Regan suggests nearly 100,000 years), when the last 

 glacial period was drawing to a close and the ice -sheet was gradually 

 receding northwards. The char, being an arctic or sub-arctic salmonoid, 

 inhabited the waters flowing from the melting ice-field and collecting 



•r*# Freskwattr Fishes of the British Isles, by C. Tate Re^an, 1911, p. 77. 



147 



