ALPINE CHAR. 
273 
all the northern rivers the Char will take a fly greedily; and 
he remembers to have heard from a Norwegian fisherman that 
on one occasion he thus caught a Char in the open sea, some 
distance from the mouth of the river. 
The example described, which was a female from Loch 
Grannock, was seven inches and a half in length; the shape 
plump, deep, the belly protuberant; forehead a little rounded; 
eye moderate; jaws equal, mystache extending to the hindmost 
border of the eye; small incurved teeth in it and the jaws, 
round the palate and on the tongue; in the latter widely 
separate, in two rows; none seen in the vomer. Nostrils about 
midway between the eye and the snout. Head flat between 
the eyes, with a slight ridge. Small scales on the body; lateral 
line straight, the pores obscure. The body becomes narrower 
towards the tail. Dorsal fin anterior to the middle of the 
length, with eleven rays, the first short, and two last from one 
root. Anal with eleven rays, the third longest; pectorals reach 
more than half the distance to the ventrals, ending pointed, 
with twelve rays; ventrals sharp, long, with nine rays; tail 
forked; hindmost rays of the anal opposite the adipose fin. The 
colour black on the back and sides, softening into whitish on 
the belly, with a patch of bright scarlet in front of the ventrals, 
which fins are not close together; the whole back and sides 
with scattered white spots; pectoral, ventral, and anal fins 
yellowish, the latter with a white border in front. This example 
was distended with enlarged roe, of which the right lobe was 
much larger than the left, so that the latter, together with the 
stomach and entrails, were thrust far upward. Air-bladder 
large. The aspect and proportions of this fish are visibly 
diflhrent from those of the other Chars. It is said to attain 
the length of ten inches, and as in all the Chars the males 
are adorned with more splendid colours than the females; the 
sides verging into blue or greyish brown, in the young with 
broad dark transverse streaks on the sides; the tail in adult fishes 
in this and the Torgoch with a broad white terminal border. 
It is remarked by Nilsson that such of those fish as go up 
the stream the highest have their flesh reddest. 
A question arises, whether does this Alpine Char really 
differ from the Salmo carpio of Linnteus, and of Fabricius in 
his “Fauna Greenlandica?” which in Greenland is said to be 
VOL. IV, 2 N 
