478 AMERICAN FISHES, 
genus have not been sufficiently studied, it is impossible yet to make this 
generalization. They are, emphatically, cold water fishes, thriving at a 
temperature little above the freezing point, and in their period of greatest 
vigor and perfection at the approach of winter, as is indicated by the fact 
that at this time their spawning takes place. No fish of any kind has ever 
been found nearer to the North Pole than the Char, a species, Sa/velinus 
arcturus, having been discovered by the last English polar expedition in 
12° north of the Arctic Circle. In the South of Europe its range is limited 
by the Alps, and in this region its study has brought to light a very curious 
fact which confirms still more strongly the idea just spoken of, that the 
fish thrive the best in a very cold climate. In the extreme north and in 
the extreme south this fish reaches its greatest perfection. 
bl 
THE OMBRE CHEVALIER OR SAIBLING. 
‘The Saibling has been propagated by German fish-culturists for a period 
of ten years or more, and thrives magnificently in captivity. The hatch- 
ery at Oussee, in Germany, produces yearly three or four hundred thousand 
of artificially brooded Saibling, and plants them in the neighboring lakes. 
In the tanks at the late International Fishery Exhibition in Berlin were 
exhibited many superb specimens of this fish, some of them over two feet 
in length, and one of these was sent to the National Museum by Herr von 
Behr, president of the Deutscher Fischerei Verein. 
In selecting a place in which to deposit the Saibling eggs received in 
January, 1881, the Commissioner of Fisheries endeavored to find a lake 
as similar as possible in depth and temperature to the larger Swiss lakes, 
and he, therefore, sent them to Newfound Lake near Plymouth, N. H. 
Here the whole sixty thousand were planted, with the hope, that placing so 
large a number together in a lake of moderate size, the experiment of intro- 
