SILVER TROUT. 
73 
In reference to the theory mentioned in the foregoing quotation, Dr. Bean wrote (American 
Angler, February 4, 1888): “It seemed to me at one time that the Dublin Pond trout of New 
Hampshire might be identical with the new Sunapee species. The fine specimens secured 
through the instrumentality of Dr. Quackenbos enabled me to explode this fallacy very quickly. 
The Dublin Pond (Lake Monadnock) form is more nearly allied to fontinalis, the common brook 
trout, than to the Sunapee species; it is the Salvelinus agassizi of Garman, a trout with mottled 
fins, a forked tail and hyoid teeth.” 
The first impression given by a large fresh specimen is that it might be a cross between 
S. fontinalis and S. aureolus. But such disposal of it is forbidden by the facts presented by 
its structure and its habitat. If it were a cross of these two species it could come about only 
by the later advent of one or the other. From present conditions it is obvious that <S. aureolus 
would have had to be the original Monadnock-Lake Trout, and subsequent hybridization effected 
by S. fontinalis gaining access to the pond. Some of the oldest inhabitants at present state 
that S. fontinalis has always co-existed with the fish in the lake but that there had been introduc- 
tions of the Common Trout in recent years. Some, both permanent and summer residents of 
long acquaintance with the fish and who are intensely interested in it, believe that it is a hybrid 
between the original inhabitant and the Brook Trout of the outlet and that the present apparent 
deterioration in size is due to the fact that the outlet trout are now occluded. But other S. 
fontinalis have been introduced. The hybrid, if such it is admitted to be, has been a hybrid of 
the same appearance within the longest memory. The original fish has long ago disappeared. 
Therefore, according to natural laws, the alleged hybrid should become less and less like the 
original inhabitant and finally disappear. Even if it were possible for successive generations of 
a hybrid fish to perpetuate itself for a time without reversion, when there has been subsequent 
adulteration, if one or the other factor of the hybridization mingles with it the hybrid would 
naturally tend to revert to that new form. The continued access of the outlet trout or the 
introduction of other fontinalis would then be likely to absorb, as it were, such hybrid as has 
been hypothetically discussed. But the “peculiar trout” still possesses all its peculiarities, 
even in the face of several introductions of S. fontinalis and the fact that they are sometimes 
found together on the same spawning beds and are always distinguishable sufficiently indicates 
the specific distinctness of the particular fish under discussion. 
Wlien Agassiz stated that this fish was more closely related to Swiss charrs than to any 
other American species, he had probably seen no specimens of S. oquassa, and S. aureolus and 
S. marstoni had not been discovered. But his prediction that the Monadnock species would 
be found in other waters, as nature did not make a distinct species for one little locality, was 
in a way fulfilled in the later discovery of S. aureolus in Sunapee Lake. Salvelinus agassizii 
is more closely related to S, aureolus than to S. fontinalis. The only resemblance to the latter 
is in the mottling of the dorsal and caudal and the red spots on some individuals. In other 
