36 
whose life history and general characteristics it is the 
purpose of this paper to present. 
As far as is known, the first specimens of this new fish 
to be distinguished from the well-known forms were taken 
in Sunapee Lake, Merrimac Co., New Hampshire, during 
the summer of 1881, by Lieut. Ransom F Sargent and Mr. 
Alonzo J. Cheney, respectively of New London and Wil- 
mot, experienced anglers, who immediately recognized in 
the three individuals captured by them specimens of a 
salmonoid distinct from the namaycush and from the brook 
trout of the region. The fish taken weighed from two to 
three pounds each, and were known by the name of ‘‘ St. 
John’s River trout,’’ because they were believed to be de- 
scendants of fry planted in the lake in 1867 by the first 
Fish Commissioners of the State, and supposed by the resi- 
dent population to have come from the St. John River, N. 
B. The conspicuous development of the under jaw in the 
males led to the local names of ‘‘ hawkbill”’ and ‘‘ hook- 
bill; the silvery sides of the fish in summer gave rise to 
that of ‘‘ white trout.’ In the two following years, 1882 
and 1883, a sufficient number of the deep-swimming 
stranger was taken to excite comment and conjecture on 
the part of outsiders who had heard of its presence in 
Sunapee Lake; and in 1884, Col. Elliott B. Hodge, of Hol- 
derness, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Commissioner, 
finding confirmation in the reports that reached him 
for a view he seems long to have privately held, ventured 
the opinion that many Canadian and northern New Eng- 
land lakes contained a large charr, whose habit of retiring 
to the deepest and coldest waters throughout the summer, 
and of approaching the surface for a few days only at the 
end of October, explained a general ignorance concerning 
its very existence. Col. Hodge’s theory received apparent 
substantiation from his accidental discovery in October, 
1885, of vast numbers of a mysterious charr spawning on 
a mid-lake, rocky shoal at Sunapee. He wrote at the 
