JULY 153 



for everyday use, being the only structural difference 

 between trout and char — two races of fish which have 

 widely and permanently diverged in their descent from 

 a common ancestor. 



Besides this anatomical difference, there is the super- 

 ficial one of colour; for although the colour scheme 

 of trout and char have much in common, the char 

 proclaims the approach of the spawning season by a 

 brilliant flush overspreading its underparts, varying in 

 different lakes from brick red to flaming vermilion; 

 whereas trout, whether brook trout or salmon trout, 

 lose all their summer brilliancy as the autumn advances, 

 and become shabby in the extreme — unpleasantly slimy 

 to handle, stained an inky hue and blotched unbecom- 

 ingly with brown. 



To naturalists the chars are a very interesting subject 

 of study, because of the peculiar distribution of these 

 salmonoids in the northern hemisphere. The most 

 powerful of the race is the hucho (Salvelinus hucho, 

 Glinther) of the Danube, rival in dimensions of the 

 Atlantic salmon, and said to be a fine sporting fish. 

 Some years ago Lord Desborough reared a number of 

 this species, and turned them into the upper waters of 

 the Thames. Thus far ' the result is negative,' which 

 was the report of a distinguished German helmintholo- 

 gist, who, in the course of research into the life history 

 of internal parasites, having secured from the intestines 

 of a dog the larva of a rare species of tape-worm, 

 swallowed it in order to test whether human beings 

 could harbour and suffer from this particular cestode. 

 If the powerful hucho ever become established in the 



