10 SALMONID^ OF BRITAIN. 



A. Sahnones or true salmon. 



1. Salmo solar. (See Fig. 1.) 



2. „ trutta, with its sea and fresh- water varieties or local races. (See 

 Fig. 2.) 



B. Salvelini or chars. 



3. Salmo alpinus, British char. (See Fig. 3.) 



4. „ fontinalis, American char (introdiaced). 



Fig. 1. — FRONT VIEW OP TEETH ON FlO. 2.— FRONT VIEW OE TEETH ON FiG. 3. — SIDE VIEW OF TEETH 

 VOMER OF SAIMON GRILSE. VOMER OF BROOK TROUT. ON VOMER OF BRITISH CHAR. 



With such plastic forms as trout whether fresh-water or marine, and such 

 diversified appearances as some of these fish assume at different ages, it is not 

 surprising what diverse views have been and are still held as to the number of 

 species existing in our waters.* 



* Willoughby, Hi'storia PisciMm, 1686, enumerated (1) a salmon; (2) Salmulus; (3) the gray; 

 (4) " the scurf and bull trout," Trutta salmondta ; {5) Trutta fluviatilis. 



Bay, Synopis Methodica Fiscium, 1713, gave (1) Salmo, " a salmon ;" (2) Salmulus, " the 

 samlet;" (S) S. griseus seu cinereus, " the gray ;" (4) Trutta salmonata, " the salmon trout," or 

 "bulltrout," or "scurf," (5) Trutta fluviatilis, "a trout." 



Peimant, British Zoology 1776, described (1) the salmon; (2) the gray trout, Salmo eriox, 

 which he beUeved to be the sewin ; (3) the sea trout, S. trutta ; (4) the trout, S. fario ; (5) the 

 white salmon ; and (6) the samlet. He alluded to that from Llynteisi, a lake of South Wales, 

 termed Coeh y dail, and marked with black spots as large as sixpences ; to a crooked-tailed 

 variety in the Einion, a river not far from Machynlleth, and also to a similar form being in the 

 Snowdon lakes ; to the Gillaroo trout of Ireland, remarkable for the great thickness of its 

 stomach, though it does not otherwise differ from the common trout ; and to the Buddaghs of 

 Lough Neagh, in Ireland, some of which have been known to weigh 30 lb. 



Donovan, in his British Fishes (1802-1808), referred to the (1) sewen or Salmo camliricus, 

 of which he stated, among other indications, that the head was shorter than in the common 

 salmon, and the tail more forked — ^this he considered to be an anadromous form peculiar to 

 Wales ; (2) the common salmon, Salmx> salar ; (3) the trout, Salmo fario, which he observed to 

 be subject to many variations : and, lastly, to some in Scotch lakes, spotted very differently 

 from the common sorts, which he suspected to be a distinct species, but of which he makes 

 no further mention. He likewise observed how trout vary in size, and referred to the Fordwich 

 form, in Kent, which attains to nearly that of the salmon. He also remarked upon the flesh 

 of trout captured during the same season in two contiguous streams in Cardiganshire, the 

 names of which he omits to give, one of which invariably produced the red and the other the 

 white variety. 



Turton, 1807, admitted into his British fauna— {1) the salmon, Salmo salar; (2) the shewen, 

 SaZmo eriox, to which he referred Donovan's sewen ; (3) the salmon trout, SaJroo trutta; (4) the 

 common trout, Salmo fario; (5) the white salmon, Salmo phinoc ; and (6) the samleir, Salmo 

 salmulus. 



Sir Humphry Davy {Report of Parliamentary Committee on the Salmon Fislieries of the 

 United Kingdom, May 8th, 1824) gave the following species of the genus Sahno, as captured in 

 the salmon fisheries of Great Britain and Ireland, evidently meaning the sea fisheries : (1) Salmo 

 salar, or the common salmon, and (2) S. eriox, known under different names in different districts 

 as salmon-peal, sewen, bull trout, but most correctly as sea trout. 



Fleming, in his History of British Animals, 1828, enumerated first those anadromous forms 

 that have a forked tail, as (1) the common salmon, Salmo salar ; (2) the bull trout, Salmo hucho 

 which is little inferior to the salmon in size, but more elongated, and has white and insipid flesh' 

 but which be stated had no teeth on the vomer; (3) the phinook or white trout, Salmo albus' 



