THE TALE OF THE FISHES 



looked to me as its Dublin congener appeared to a 

 local writer — like "a bar of mother of pearl." 



The charr in question is closely allied to the Suna- 

 pee saibling, favoring this fish in its deep-water and 

 lake-spawning habits (on stony shallows, and not in 

 the outlet — there are no inlets) ; in the presence in some 

 specimens of teeth on the root of the tongue; in its 

 deeply notched or lunate tail; and in the absence of 

 mottling on its back of "solid green with silvery glints." 

 But in its habit of rising to the surface in search of 

 insect food during May and early June, when it readily 

 takes a fly, worm, or minnow; in its assumption of 

 occasional vermilion spots aureoled with blue or lilac 

 halo; and in the characteristic marbling on the dorsal 

 fin and upper lobe of the caudal, it resembles the brook 

 trout. Whereas this latter fish can change his shades 

 in twenty minutes to adjust himself to a color environ- 

 ment, he can not at will marble his fins and back with 

 vermiculations and punctulate his ocellated skin with 

 spots of fire in lilac frame, to engage the eye and rivet 

 the affections of his paramour. No Michael Angelo 

 was He who fashioned the temple of this exquisite fish 

 form made perfect through millennia of differentiation 



33 



