286 



THE FRESH-WATER FISHES OF EUROPE. 



length of the head. The head of the vomer has a transverse series of teeth 

 across its base, and there is a single series on the body of the bone, all being 

 persistent throughout life. The long and black pectoral fin is a marked cha- 

 racteristic. The eye varies in relative size with age ; in fishes with a length of 

 eight inches, it is fully one-quarter of the length of the head; with a length 

 of eleven inches and a half, it is one-sixth of the length of the head. 



The vertebrae vary in number from fifty-seven to fifty-nine; and the pyloric 

 appendages number from thirty-six to forty-two. Sterile specimens have been 

 met with. 



Salmo obtusirostris (HECK EL). 



D. 14, A. 1112, P. 13, V. 9, C. 7/17/6. Scales : lat. line, 101 103, trans. f - 



20 

 21. 



The River Trout of Dalmatia and Italy has no distinctive popular name, 

 and is known to the Italians as Trota (Fig. 147). 



In Dalmatia, from which it was first described, it reaches a length of 



Fig. 147. SALMO OKTUSIUOSTRIS (HECKEL). 



fourteen or fifteen inches. Heckel and Kner met with it in the Zermagna, the 

 Salona, and the Verlica, near Imosky, and in these streams it lived on Phry- 

 ganean larvae, which occur in countless multitudes. In Italy it is found in the 

 Tiber. 



The snout and head in this fish are shorter than in Salmo ausonii, and the 

 dorsal and anal fins are higher ; but, though it is closely allied to the latter, 

 it shows several differences, especially in the fewer scales, which lead us to 

 regard it as one of those geographical representatives or varieties dependent 

 upon conditions of ancient physical geography which separated the parent type 

 from both before Europe had acquired its present contours. 



