160 
MALACOPTERY GII. 
stomach, which I saw, was muscular like a Gillaroo’s. I saw him open 
three fresh Gillaroos from Lough Melvin (County Fermanagh) about 10 
inches long. They resembled Salmo Fario in its ordinary state ; one was 
filled with caddis-Avorms, the cases of which were covered only with par- 
ticles of stone. Their stomachs were hard and muscular, in which Gilla- 
roos I saw Valvata obtusa , Paludina impura, Lymneus pereger , which were 
obtained from the stomach of one Gillaroo. 
The Char, Salmo JJmbla , Linn., 
— Salvelinus, Don. 
In the Annals Nat. Hist. vol. vi. I published the following notice of 
this species : — 
“ Having within the last few years, through the kindness of friends and cor- 
respondents, been favoured with specimens of char from various localities in the 
British Islands, I shall here give some notes made upon them. 
“ It may first be mentioned, that so late as the years 1835 and 1836, when the 
excellent volumes of Mr. Jenyns and Mr. Yarrell appeared, neither author had 
seen any char from Ireland * or Scotland, and the original observations con- 
tained in their respective works were necessarily limited to examples of the fish 
from the lakes of England and Wales. In the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal 
for January, 1835 (vol. xviii. p. 58), Sir Wm. Jardine noticed the Salmo alpinus 
as taken by his party in Sutherlandshire. 
“ The chief object of my inquiry was to learn whether, in the lakes of Ireland 
and of those in Scotland, + from which I could procure specimens, the S. Salve- 
linus, Don., Avas to be found ; and at the same time to ascertain, at least for my 
own satisfaction, whether its characters have sufficient permanency to entitle it 
to rank as a distinct species. As they are merely crude unfinished notes that 
are to follow, I shall here give the result of the investigation, that the reader 
maybe in possession of it without entering into the details. In a fresh state I have 
had the opportunity of examining char from three localities — Windermere (Eng- 
land), Lough Melvin (Ireland), and Loch Grannoch (Scotland) ; and, either in 
spirits or preserved dry, from nine other lakes in Ireland and Scotland. The 
examination of these examples leads me to believe that the iS. JJmbla, Linn., 
and S. Salvelinus, Don., are but one species ; one, hoAvever, that, like the Salmo 
Fario, is subject to extraordinary variety. In one lake the male fish can at a 
glance be distinguished from the female either by colour or by the many cha- 
racters which are comprised under 4 form.’ In another, so similar are the 
sexes in every external character, that without the aid of dissection they cannot 
be determined. In size we find the species ordinarily attain twice the length 
and several times the Aveight J in one lake that it does in another, although the area 
of their waters is of similar extent ; indeed, in some of the largest lakes this fish 
Avill be found not to attain near the size it does in some others which are but as 
pools in comparison — there are, however, various influences which account satis- 
factorily for such differences. In the form of the body again we find the spe- 
* When I supplied Mr. Yarrell with the published localities in Ireland for the 
char, as noticed in his work, I had not seen any native examples of the species. 
In the Supplement to his British Fishes (1839, p. 27) this author has offered 
a few remarks on char sent him by Lord Cole from Loughs Eask and Melvin in 
Ireland — these are considered to be examples of the S. JJmbla, Linn., and S. 
Salvelinus, Don. 
f The fine work of Sir Wm. Jardine on the Scottish Salmonidce was not at 
the time announced. 
X That the quantity of ova produced will vary accordingly, is illustrated by 
the difference between the number found in the Loch Grannoch and the Lough 
Melvin fish. 
