OaananicI)e. 



By E. T. D. CHAMBERS, Quebec, Canada. 



A. Nelson Cheney, Esq., State Fish Culturist of New York. 



My Dear Mr. Cheney : Recalling our joint observations at the Grand Discharge 

 of Lake St. John while angling together in August, 1894, for ouananiche, I am 

 reminded of a promise then made you to let you know the result of what further 

 investigations I might be able to make into the habits of the fish and its geographical 

 distribution. Having been asked to publish the result of my observations, I may say 

 that arrangements have been made with Messrs. Harper & Bros, for the issue, some 

 time next April, of " The Book of the Ouananiche and Its Canadian Environment," 

 pending which, however, I deem it a pleasure to communicate personally to you, for 

 whatever use you may consider desirable to make of them, such facts as may prove of 

 interest respecting the fish, either to yourself or friends. 



In regard to the specific identity of the ouananiche, I hold firmly to the conclusion 

 at which you yourself arrived after the examination of specimens at Lake St. John, 

 that it presents no varietal differences from the so-called landlocked salmon of Maine 

 which have been planted in some of your New York waters. Without any very 

 intimate acquaintance with these latter fish, I am bound to accept the result of their 

 examination by the leading American experts who declare them to be specimens of 

 the true salnw salar. It is a fact that Dr. Goode urges that differences in their life 

 histories seem to justify the claim of the landlocked salmon to be regarded as a 

 distinct variety of salmo salar, and that Dr. Jordan advances a similar claim on behalf 

 of the ouananiche, but I cannot better reply to these contentions than in the words of 

 Professor S. Garman, of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, who thus writes me : 

 " Our friends find some difficulty in accepting the conclusion that there never was a 

 variety Sebago. None the less it is the fact. As the variety was characterized it 

 included all the young of salmo salar, and excluded only such adults as had visited 

 the sea. Similar distinctions would make a different variety of the men in a crew out 

 on a voyage, returning with modified complexions ; or a new species of those going 

 out smooth-faced and returning with whiskers." The best authorities agree as to the 

 absoluty identity of the sea salmon with the so-called land-locks of Maine, for science 

 cannot recognize different life histories as evidence of distinct varieties. The ouana- 

 niche is similarly a salmo salar beyond any shadow of a doubt, and so, unless things 



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