CHAR— GENERAL OBSERVATIONS UPON, 233 



body again we find ttis species, wlien in equally high condition, to be in one lake 

 herring-like and in another approximating to the roundness of the eel. So mani- 

 fold are the differences presented by the char from various localities, that it 

 would be tedious and perhaps useless to point them out in every case. A corre- 

 spondent in The Field (April 22, 1882), speaking of the white trout of Quebec, 

 observed that the best authorities seemed to agree that the sea trout of the 

 provinces is simply a Salmo fontinalis that had emigrated into salt water and 

 changed its colour by that means. This leads us to ask whether we ought to 

 agree with Agassiz, Thompson, and others, that the number of species of char in 

 these islands is limited to one, but that subject to great variations in form, in 

 colour, and other characters due to physical causes ? Or should we adopt the 

 theories of those who see at least half-a-dozen species in the British Isles, and 

 anticipate many more being discovered when the lochs of Scotland and the 

 loughs of Ireland have been exhaustively explored ? 



The number of vertehrce in examples of the British char have been recorded 

 as varying between 59 and G3, while the ccecal appendages differ greatly, but not 

 so widely as in the fresh- water trout, having been observed varying between 28 

 and 52. As to the number of scales along the lateral-line, it is remarkable that 

 in the American Sahno fontinalis they would seem to have decreased in numbers 

 in some which have been introduced into the fresh waters of this country and 

 bred artificially : this is a subject which requires being closely watched before a 

 very decided opinion can be given. 



If we seek to investigate the history of these fishes from the earliest times, 

 and inquire of geologists as to what account they are able to furnish, we are told 

 that the Sahnonidce are a comparatively recently evolved family (see page 4 amie), 

 while they are now very locally distributed in our lakes of Wales, the north 

 of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Mr. Symonds, in the last edition of the 

 Becords of the BocJcs, observed : " I have fished in and visited many of the lakes in 

 Great Britain where the char, Ooregoni, and great lake trout (Salmo ferox) are 

 known, but I never saw one in which they still exist that is not either a glacier 

 lake, or rock basin, or that is not dammed or otherwise surrounded by glacial 

 moraine matter. They are also inhabitants of the lakes of Sweden and Norway, 

 which everywhere bears traces of the glacial epoch and its close, and seem to me 

 to be (like the Alpine plants that still linger among the mountains) , fishes of that 

 colder period when the last of the glaciers still hung to the combes of the High- 

 lands of Scotland and Wales." But other geologists have shown that they are 

 not now restricted to lakes of glacial origin. Mr. Brooke, writing respecting a 

 species of Irish char, observed that " Lough Eske (where it was captured) was 

 the crater of an extinct volcano, as suggested by Dr. Wilde, of Dublin." 



Doubtless the char prefer the colder north to the more temperate portions of 

 the globe ; and also moderately still waters. Among the fishes brought by the late 

 Arctic expeditions were examples of char very similar, if not identical with 

 British forms, thus seeming to show a near relationship one with the other. While 

 in Nordenskiold's Arctic voyages it was recorded that the young of 8. alpinus, 

 three inches long, were captured on the eastern side of Widje Bay in June, 1861. 



Char are a more delicate and apparently shorter lived fish than trout, they 

 require deeper and stiller pieces of water and a colder temperature : they have 

 even been recorded as residing in lochs where the sun never reaches the surface 

 of the water. They are readily destroyed by poisonous substances, while attempts 

 to introduce them to fresh localities have not been so uniformly successful as with 

 the trout. The very young, as up to twelve months, will thrive in boxes under 

 cover where trout would dwarf, while they seem to be rather intolerant of heat, 

 and the American form, at least, is of a roving disposition. 



Many and various reasons have been advanced by different persons for and 

 against the enactment of laws for the protection of fish, especially char. The 

 following remarks of the Salmon Commissioners of 1860 are of interest : — " This 

 delicate fish is also decreasing in number and the cause is obvious. They are 

 fished for and taken only late in the season and during their spawning time. The 

 excuse for this is that they then only come to the shallow parts of the lake and 



