18 DESOEIPTION, OLASSIFICATIQN, AND 



ican ouananiche are not sufficient to mark it as a 

 distinct subspecies of Salmo salar. They doubtless 

 all arise from the fact that the ouananiche differs in 

 its life history from the salmon that runs down to 

 the sea, and are not nearly as marked as are the dif- 

 ferences between the brook-trout {Salmo salvelinus) 

 taken from different streams. A subspecific name in 

 science for the individuals that remain in fresh water 

 may prove convenient, but, with all due respect to 

 Dr. Jordan and Dr. Goode, different habits alone can- 

 not constitute a different variety. 



Professor Samuel Garman, of the Museum of Com- 

 parative Zoology, Cambridge, Mass., thus admirably 

 illustrates, in the course of a recent letter, where such 

 erroneous distinctions would lead us : " Our friends find 

 some difficulty in accepting the conclusion that there 

 never was a variety sehago. ISTone the less it is the fact. 

 As the variety was characterized, it included all the 

 young of 8. salar, and excluded only such adults as 

 had visited the sea. Similar distinctions would make 

 a different variety of the men in a crew out on a voy- 

 age, returning with modified complexions ; or a new 

 species of those going out smooth-faced and returning 

 with whiskers." 



Anatomically there is no difference whatever between 

 the ouananiche and the Salmo salar. The few distinctive 

 points in external appearance noted by Mr. Brackett as 

 serving to identify the ouananiche from grilse of similar 

 size — local adaptations, as they evidently are — apply,no 

 doubt, with much greater force to the Maine fish, res- 

 idents of placid water, and to the few junky " Canucks " 

 that desert the rapids of la grande decharge to fatten 



