832 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
But as varieties of Laxoring he adopted 1) from Lin- 
naeus’s Fauna Spec. 307, which he calls Laxoring, Lax- 
ockel, Fjerd-lax, or Eriksmdss-lax, and Spec. 308, which 
he calls Borting, Sikmatk, Tajmen, or Lodjor, and 2) 
from Artedi the above-mentioned No. 3 in Gen. Pise., 
which he calls Tvdrspol, and No. 12 in Syn. Nom. Fisc. 
which he calls Laxunge , Smdlax, or Padrifvare. Gis- 
ler’s third species, Stenbit etc., is indeed equivalent, 
according to his synonymy, to No. 5 in Artedi, Gen. 
Pise.; but all that he says of it is that it “has its con- 
stant haunts in small streams, tarns, and lakes, and is 
quite rare further down the country in the great cas- 
cades. Deposits the roe in small streams at the middle 
of September. In clear water with a stony or sandy 
bottom its colour is light, but on a bottom of ooze or 
mud quite blackish”. It is not improbable that Gisler 
meant the Charr, which was of less interest to him and 
perhaps, in consequence, less known, for both the Swe- 
dish name of Boding and the Lapp Baud (according 
to Linnaeus) might easily be confounded with Bofisk. 
If this be the case, we find in Gisler the opinion now 
held by most ichthyologists, that within the Scandina- 
vian fauna there are only three species of the genus 
Salmo, namely the Lax (Salmon), Oring (Trout), and 
Boding (Charr). 
This opinion was subsequently advanced first by 
Lilljeborg in Ofvers. Vet.-Akad. Forliandlingar for the 
year 1849, where he points out that “the characters 
which divide Salmo salmulus and Salmo fario have much 
in common with those which distinguish Salmo salar 
and Salmo eriox. That S. salmulus is the young of 
the Blanklax ( S . salar), and S. fario that of the Okla 
or S. eriox, is therefore almost unquestionable, especially 
as they occur in the same waters, and connecting links 
between them are known”. A more explicit statement 
of this opinion was Widegren’s principal object in 
his u Bidrag till kdnnedomen om Sveriges Salmonider” 
( Ofvers . Vet.-Akad. Fork. 1863). 
But another, still more radical reduction of the 
species had been proposed, conditionally so to speak, 
by Nilsson in Ofvers. Vet.-Akad. Fork, for 1848. 
“Under such circumstances, and seeing that all the cha- 
racters prove variable in so high a degree, Ave are 
almost tempted to ask Avhether there are here more than 
two species of Salmons: Trutta and Salvelinus-, or the 
very two which I have designated in my Prodromus as 
the representatives of distinct groups”. Nevertheless he 
retains the Blanklax, Grdlax, Laxoring, and two Charr 
forms as “the most differentiated” or “least intercom- 
municating” species. In his Skandinavisk Fauna he 
remarks, hoAvever (p. 395), that the Grdlax “is 'most 
probably nothing more than an old outgroAvn form of 
Salmo Trutta or Odd’ / and Ave may thus trace even 
in Nilsson’s writings the opinion “that in the division 
of the true Salmons Ave have only two species certainly 
distinct from each other” (Lillj.). While Nilsson, how- 
ever, in his last-mentioned Avork, divided the Trouts 
( Oringarne ), including the Grdlax, into six (conditio- 
nally seven) species, Sundea^all adopted the above opi- 
nion, that the true Salmons of Scandinavia belong to 
one single species. This appears from the titles given 
by him to the figures in PI. 58 and 59 in the first 
edition of “ Scandinavian Fishes'. The male Salmon 
represented in PI. 58 is evidently a Blanklax, probably 
from Norrkoping; fig. a in PI. 59 is a Laxoring ( Bor- 
ting ) from the Ljusne Elf, and fig. b in the same plate 
a Grdlax from Lake Wetter; yet all three bear the 
specific name of salar. 
All that different vieAvs as to specific determination 
has been able to accomplish, has thus been devoted to 
the elucidation of the Scandinavian Salmon forms. But 
here as elseAvhere the point seems to be, not so much 
the establishment of a certain number of species, as the 
explanation of the natural relationship between the 
forms selected as distinct types. Before these forms 
can rank as distinct directions of development, it is of 
course necessary to sIioav that the characters employed 
do not coincide with those Avhich mark the common 
variations of the Avhole genus under the influence of 
different developmental, sexual, and other circumstances. 
We begin with the investigation of these circum- 
stances in the true Salmons, assuming at first the di- 
stinction between Salmon and Trout, as separate spe- 
cies, to be true. 
In order to find an expression for those common 
variations of the Salmons Avhich depend on their growth 
(their developmental circumstances), Ave have divided 
our Scandinavian material, 316 specimens, into five 
groups, arranged according to age (the length of the 
body). These five groups represent different stages of 
development Avhich are in general Avell defined both by 
form and coloration, though the rule is often infringed 
OAving to a cause long known, especially as a result of 
Widegren’s observations, namely the fact that the de- 
velopment is not uniform, one or other of the stages 
being often persistent in an individual specimen longer 
