226 



ViY. C. T. Regan — A Preliminary 



There can be little doubt that when the temperature of the 

 Northern Hemisphere was lower, as during the glacial epoch, 

 migratory char were to be found much further south than at 

 the present day, and that the char of the British Isles, Scan- 

 dinavia, and Central Europe represent a number of lacustrine 

 colonies of one or a few migratory ancestral forms. 



The char of each lake or each system of lakes have been 

 isolated for a considerable time and have become differen- 

 tiated to a greater or less extent ; the study of the different 

 forms is one of great interest. I have for some time been 

 trying to get together a good series of the char of the British 

 Isles for the National Collection, but progress has been slow, 

 and it has seemed to me worth while to publish this pre- 

 liminary account of the Irish char in order to call attention 

 to the subject. 



In 1841 (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist, vi.) Thompson gave an 

 interesting account of the Irish char, which he recorded from 

 lakes in Donegal, Galway, and Waterford, and also from 

 Lough Melvin in Fermanagh, Loughnabrack in Longford, 

 Lough Eaghish in Monaghan, and Lough Dan in Wicklow. 

 He described the char or "freshwater herring '^ of Lougli 

 Melvin, and noted some of its peculiarities, including the 

 difficulty of distinguishing the sexes from external chai^acters, 

 writing " some of the largest finned are females.'" He also 

 noted that in the lakes at the source of the River Lee in 

 Cork, not long before celebrated for their fine char, these fish 

 were apparently extinct in 1839. Similarly the char or 

 " whiting '' of Lough Neagh, formerly abundant, was quite 

 extinct in 1837. 



Fig. 1. 



The extinct " Wliiting " of Lough Neagh. 



An account of this last-named fish was contributed to 

 Dabonrdieu's 'History of the County of Antrim/ published 

 in 1812. The accompanying figure, although very inaccu- 

 rate, is perhaps sufficiently interesting for mc to reproduce a 

 tracing, considerably reduced. 



