HABITS OF THE OUANANICHE 31 



unless, as is most improbable, it has been transplant- 

 ed there. 



The existence of fresh -water specimens of the At- 

 lantic salmon in certain lakes of Sweden has been 

 known for upwards of thirty years ; and more than a 

 quarter of a century ago, the ouananiche of a chain of 

 New Brunswick lakes, emptied by the St. Croix, were 

 described in Stewart's Quarterly by J. Harry Yenning 

 over the nom-de-plume of "An Old Angler." Their 

 identity, however, had not at that time been estab- 

 lished, and Mr. Yenning, who was a delightful writer 

 upon all subjects connected with field sports, was at a 

 loss whether to classify the fish as a distinct species 

 from Salmo salar, or as a merely degenerated progeny, 

 by some means imprisoned in the lakes and debarred 

 from access to the ocean. He admitted that so many 

 difficulties opposed the latter theory that he was 

 inclined to adopt the former, and to consider these 

 lake fish as a distinct species peculiar to St. Croix 

 waters, or not yet observed in others. 



Comparative examination would have proved the 

 identity of these fish with the salmon from the sea. 

 But then, as now, most men preferred to judge fish 

 by their size, their habits, or their habitat, rather than 

 by their structural resemblance or differences. And 

 it had not probably occurred to investigators, at that 

 time, to account for the existence of salmon, the whole 

 year round, in fresh water having uninterrupted com- 

 munication with the sea by any other supposition 

 than that of distinct variety, and least of all by the 

 theory that the salmon was originally a fresh-water 

 fish, only some specimens of which had acquired the 



