XXVII 



As I sat one brilliant summer day in the cool dining- 

 saloon of a Norwegian hotel discussing an 

 excellent middagsmad, an English clergy- 

 man beside me a stranger passed high encomium 

 upon the quality of a dish of trout that was handed 

 over. 



' Very good indeed/ I replied, ' but you will excuse 

 me if I observe that they are not trout.' 



My neighbour seemed to take me for a very ignorant 

 person, probably a Cockney tourist; for he insisted 

 with some warmth that I was mistaken, and that he 

 knew trout well enough when he saw them. Where- 

 upon, perhaps over-officiously, I took the head of one 

 of these fish and drew his attention to the vomer or 

 palatal bone, which was armed with teeth only on the 

 forepart, proving it to be the head of a char ; whereas 

 trout and salmon carry teeth upon the entire length of 

 the vomer. It is true that this, although a constant 

 distinction, is not a very convincing one, inasmuch as 

 the vomerine teeth of salmon and trout tend to drop 

 out with advancing age, leaving only those on the 

 front of the bone; but it has caused modern ich- 

 thyologists to recognise char as a distinct subgenus 

 (Salvelinus) of the genus Salmo ; and it is convenient 



