CHAR— AMERICAN, ITS VARIETIES. 249 



contains dissimilar forms and those bred in different hatcheries may easily be 

 distinguished. 



The same author observed that the Lake Trout or Salmon- Trout, Salmo 

 namaycush, inhabiting the chain of Great Lakes from Superior to Ontario, as well 

 as Lake Champlain and many other smaller lakes of the United States and of 

 British America, has as its nearest relative the 8. fontinalis. The Lake Trout 

 appears to have undergone modifications, being a char not land-locked, but placed 

 under conditions directly opposite to those connected with those which are 

 land-locked. It would perhaps seem like a hasty generalization to point to 

 8. fontinalis as the form from which the Lake Trout has been developed, but 

 one may fairly take into consideration the fact that this species alone, of all the 

 group of Salmo, is usually associated with 8. namaycush. Professor Brown- Goode 

 considers that " the popular and scientific names which have been given to this 

 species are due to the wonderful tendency of variation in size, shape, and 

 colouration, which this species, like the Brook Trout, exhibits. Every lake in 

 which they occur has its own varieties, which local authorities believe to be quite 

 peculiar. Some are black, some brown with crimson spots, some gray with 

 delicate reticulations like those of a pickerel." 



The fontinalis has been introduced from America into this country, and Prank 

 Buckland, Land and Water, 1871, among other fish remarked, " American brook 

 trout brought over by Mr. Parnaby, of Troutdale Fishery, Keswick," also in his 

 Natural History of British Fishes, 1880, p. 346, he remarked, " The first specimens 

 ever seen in this country were sent to me beautifully packed with moss in tin 

 boxes, by some friends in America. The parent fish were obtained from Lake 

 Huron, in Canada. Since that time the import of eggs of fontinalis has become 

 a regular business," and Livingston- Stone observed that in 1868,* " one lot was 

 sent to England to Mr. Frank Buckland, and was favourably noticed in the 

 London Times" (p. 311). 



Varieties. — DeKay, Natv/ral History of New Yorlc, asserted that there were two 

 distinct species, Salmo fontinalis and 8. erythrog aster, the first without, the second 

 with red spots. A local observer remarked that in its native habitat, it " affects 

 every forest pond, with its ' runs,' affluent brooks and larger rivers, presenting 

 a large series of varieties in colouring, with, however, certaia prominent marks 

 by which they are always referable to one species. In the deeper parts of large 

 lakes, it has for company two other species — 8. confinis and 8. amethystus, both 

 much larger fish, 8. confinis attaining a weight of 20 lb. Both are coarse fish 

 and bottom feeders," and General Hardy, Land and Water, November 23rd, 

 1885, observed that " of course, it is subject to variation in the brooks, rivers, 

 and lakes of its extensive range (I have known lakes, separated by a narrow ridge 

 of a few yards wide, containing trout so different in colouring and shape as to 

 cause an impression of existing specific difference)." 



" Fish inhabiting swift streams have lithe trim bodies and long powerful fins ; 

 those in the quiet lakes are stout, short-finned, and often overgrown. In cool, 

 limpid brooks, with sunlight, much oxygen and stimulating food their skins are 

 transparenb and their hues vivid : in dark, sluggish pools they are sombre and 

 slimy and are called black trout" (Brown- Goode, Nat. Hist. Aquat. Animals, p. 500). 



"Mic-Mac" writing from Boston, in The Field, April 22nd, 1882, observed, 

 " One word with regard to our white trout. They certainly are not identical with 

 the white trout of the Irish lakes. There has been a great deal of discussion and 

 disagreement on the subject of this fish ; but at the present date the best autho- 

 rities seem to agree that the sea trout of the provinces is simply a Salmo fontinalis 

 that has emigrated into salt water, and changed its colour by that means. 

 Anatomically they are identical with, externally they are very different from, a 

 river fish — so much so that the veriest tyro will, after a day's fishing, be able to 



* Mr. Parker Gillmore, THmes, October 28th, 1885, claimed to have been the first who 

 proposed the introduction of this fish into our waters in 1866-67, and at the termination of the 

 latter year went to America, collected and shipped them to this country (that would have been 

 in 1868), for which he had not only been left a pecuniary loser, but also that he had never been 

 credited with his work. 



