28 
KENDALL: NEW ENGLAND CHARES. 
species of this group are really specifically identical but subject to considerable local variation , 
in form, color, and habits. In Forest and Stream of December 14, 1882, p. 389, writing of the 
Blueback, Dr. David S. Jordan said: “No .specimens are on record from any waters in the United 
States other than the Rangeley Lakes. It has, however, been recently discovered and described 
as a new species by Dr. Gunther as Salmo naresi (Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1877, page 476) in 
lakes of Arctic America about Discovery Bay. Dr. Bean has also found it in Kumlien’s collec- , 
tion from Cumberland Gulf. It is probably an Arctic fish, which for some reason keeps its I 
hold in the Rangeley chain, but has become extinct in the other lakes of northern Maine, if it I 
ever lived there.” 
In a special supplement of Forest and Stream, dated April 4, 1889, devoted to “Salmon 
and Trout,” Dr. T. H. Bean says: “The blueback is known certainly only from lakes and 
streams of western Maine; its range would be extended northward to Arctic America if we 
included Nares trout under this name, but the justice of this course is open to question, and we 
ought to devote a little more study to the subject before uniting the two.” 
Unless the Blueback is identical with the other forms mentioned, its known range was until ' 
1905 restricted to the Rangeley Lakes. In the Maine Sportsman, February, 1905, page 117, | 
the present writer recorded it from Rainbow Lake, the headwaters of a tributary of the West ' 
Branch of Penobscot River, Piscataquis County, Maine, and later additional specimens were 
secured from the same place. Very possibly careful search would reveal them in other northern 
Maine waters. 
This fish was first called to the attention of naturalists by Dr. Charles Girard at the meeting ( 
of the Boston Society of Natural History of October 20, 1852. In this communication he said: 
“The abode of the ‘Blue Back’ is, as stated above, the Moosemegantic Lake, in which it is 
concealed during the greatest part of the year; but about the 10th of October, it comes near j 
shore and ascends in shoals the Kenebago for the purpose of spawning. Half a mile above its 
mouth, the Kenebago receives the outlet of Lake Oquassa; the trout there leaves the Kenebago 
to the left and runs towards Oquassa Lake, where its voyage comes to a close. After the middle 
of November it goes back into Moosemegantic Lake and is seen no more until October of the 
next year.” 
In the previously mentioned article Dr. Jordan further .said: “As to the habits of the Blue- , 
I 
back nothing seems to be known beyond the following from the original description,” which is j 
then quoted. And up to the present day, it may be added, outside of articles that have appeared ^ 
from time to time in sportsmen’s journals and magazines, there is very little published informa- ( 
tion. For that reason the essential matter pertaining to this species appearing in those journals 
is quoted in the following pages. 
In an article entitled “Blueback Trout,” Mr. J. G. Rich wrote (Forest and Stream, January ! 
4, 1883): “In the year 1844 I visited the Rangeley Lakes, and heard from settlers about the 
