AUGUST 189 



The burbot {Lota vulgaris) has a very wide range, 

 extending over Central and Northern Europe from the 

 north of Italy to Scandinavia, and so through Siberia 

 perhaps over Northern Asia. It abounds in many of 

 the large lakes of Canada and the Northern United 

 States from Maine and New Brunswick to the head- 

 waters of the Missouri and in the waters of Alaska. The 

 American burbot was formerly classed as a distinct 

 species under the title of Lota maculosa, but I believe 

 is now recognised as merely a geographical variant of 

 L. vulgaris. Owing to its keeping to the bottom of the 

 water and its British habitat being exclusively confined 

 to the Trent system and a few other easterly flowing 

 streams in England, very few anglers or fishermen are 

 acquainted with it ; many, I find, have never heard of 

 its existence. 



It is the distribution of this fish in British waters 

 which seems to deserve attention as bearing, possibly, 

 some significance in connection with geological pro- 

 blems. A denizen of fresh water only, it cannot live in 

 salt water. The rivers which it inhabits — the Trent, 

 the Yorkshire Ouse, the Nen, with the brooks and 

 pools of the Fen district, and the Norfolk Ouse — are 

 considered as having formed part of the Rhine system 

 when that great river flowed northward through the 

 plain now submerged under the North Sea. But the 

 Thames, which geologists regard as having formed part 

 of the same system, does not contain, and never has 

 contained, any burbot, although that fish is plentiful in 

 the Rhine. Its absence from the principal east-flow- 

 ing English river and its presence in other east-flowing 



