8 
KENDALL: NEW ENGLAND CHARRS. 
Salmo: anal fin short, of 9 to 12 rays, vomer flat, its toothed surface plane; teeth on 
shaft of vomer directly on surface of bone. 
Salvelinus: vomer boat-shaped, the shaft strongly depressed, without teeth, the teeth 
confined to the head or chevron which is more or less prolonged backward, free from the shaft ; 
scales comparatively small. 
THE CHARRS — SALVELINUS. 
While most American ichthyologists include all but one or two of the charrs in the genus 
Salvelinus, most recent European authorities still regard them all as belonging to the genus 
Salmo, or admit them as a subgenus Salvelinus. The character of the vomer, however, should 
be regarded as a good generic distinction, especially as there are other well marked differences. 
Generically, the charrs are of extended geographical distribution, occurring in many lakes 
and streams throughout Arctic Europe, Asia, Spitzbergen, Iceland, Greenland, and Arctic 
America, extending southward at the higher altitudes to the British Isles and Italy at least; 
the northern United States, in the Appalachian Mountains to Georgia and Alabama; on the 
west coast to northern California and correspondingly on the western Pacific shores to Japan. 
Wherever they occur, unless depleted by man, they usually abound. Formerly in Europe, 
many nominal species were recognized which later Von Siebold and Agassiz were inclined to 
consider as local variations or races of one comprehensive species. Now, ichthyologists as a 
rule regard them mainly as one species, Salvelinus alpinus. Smitt, however, indicates that there 
are two well marked sub-forms of “Salmo umbla” characteristic of different altitudes: S. alpinus, 
representing the higher altitudes and northern latitudes; S. salvelinus, lower altitudes and more 
southern latitudes, these also showing in each group local races and forms. 
Among those recognizable as charrs, Linnaeus (Syst. Nat., ed. 10, 1758) names four species 
under the genus Salmo: — “Alpinus, Habitat in Lapponiae, Angliae alpibus, solus; Salmarinus, 
Habitat Tridenti in fluviis frigidis saxosis; Salvelinus, Habitat in Austria ad Lintz; Umbla, 
Habitat in Helvetian, Italian lacubus.” 
Subsequent writers have more or less confused the synonymy, but of these Linnaean species, 
S. alpinus and S. salmarinus are probably the same, and S. salvelinus and S. umbla undoubtedly 
identical. 
According to Smitt the following characters distinguish the two forms of European charrs: 
a. Distance between the ventral fins and the tip of the snout more than half the length of the body. 
S. salvelinus. 
1). Distance between the ventral fins and the tip of the snout less than half the length of the body. 
S. alpinus. 
