maculosa Lesu. and Lota Brosmiana Storer, as these latter differ among themselves; and that they constitute three species or only one. Here, for the first time, we have a critical and comparative examination, but it does not satisfy the writers who follow him, or they seem, indeed, not to have known his account.

As to Lota compressa Lesu., Mr. Thompson was not acquainted with it, and, in his turn, he copies the description of Dr. Storer.

The Natural History of the Fishes of New York appeared also in 1842. Lota maculosa is there inserted with a long list of synonyms, but without comparative criticism. Then characters are noticed, to which nobody had made allusion before. Such are: "Pectorals long, pointed; their tips reaching nearly to the base of the first dorsal" "first dorsal small, subtriangular ;" and a figure to confirm them. Dr. Dekay says, however, he is acquainted with Lota compressa only through the descriptions of Lesueur and Storer, from whom he may have borrowed his. But whence comes his figure, which exists nowhere else, so far as I know? Dr. Dekay describes and figures also another species, which he considers as new, under the name of Lota inornata from the Hudson River, and which Dr. Storer considers as synonymous with his Lota Brosmiana, of New Hampshire. Certainly, if this identity is real, it does not exist in the figures which these two authors have published, nor even in their descriptions, since the one, (Lota inornata Dekay,) has the upper jaw larger than the lower, while in the other (Lota Brosmiana Storer) both jaws are equal. And there are still other differences.

In such a state of things, it was impossible for me to establish the synonymy and to compare critically the species without original specimens for comparison. Possessing myself only such specimens as I procured at Lake Superior, I will describe, provisionally, that species under the name of Lota maculosa, without synonymy, and I will limit myself to indicating the analogies and the differences which I have observed, I will not say in the published figures, but in the original descriptions of the authors. The question, thus restored to its true position, may in future lead to further progress.

Synops. N. Am. Fishes, p. 219.

LOTA MACULOSA.

The description which best coincides with our specimens is that of Mr. Thompson of the Lota of Lake Champlain, and which we have cited above. The wood-cut which he gives of it, though much reduced, sustains this assertion. I will remark one difference only, which is, that the snout is more pointed, and the upper lip slopes more over the lower jaw than in the specimens from Lake Superior. The first dorsal fin seems also to be higher than the second.

Dr. Richardson not having figured the species which he describes, we have compared attentively his description with our specimens, to which it applies in a general way, as also in several peculiarities; nevertheless, we would direct the attention of ichthyologists to the following differences: The head is proportionally more elongated, forming only the fifth part of the whole length; the snout more pointed, the upper jaw somewhat longer than the lower; this latter is besides considerably exceeded by the upper lip. The distance which separates the centre of the orbit from the end of the snout is equivalent to three lengths of the axis of the orbit itself; this axis is contained four times and a half on the space which extends from this same point of departure to the posterior margin of the operculum, being contained seven times and a half in the whole length of the head. The eyes themselves are besides situated at the upper margin of the face, so as to be seen from above. The labials are an inch and a half long, the intermaxillaries one inch. These measures, compared with those which Dr. Richardson gives, show us remarkable differences in the proportions of these bones. The posterior extremity of the labials is besides curved forwards.

Among the fins I find the second dorsal, if not higher than the first, at least as high. The anal is generally lower, though having the same form, and like the second dorsal, rounded and somewhat higher at its termination. The anal terminates a little before the dorsal. The ventrals have seven rays; the second is the longest. Formula: Br. 7; D. 11-76; A. 64; C. 45; V. 7; P. 19.

The skin which envelopes the fins is thick, a character which we find again in Lota compressa, which seems, however, to be a much smaller species.

The head is much depressed. The body is subcylindrical from the occiput to the anus. The tail is also much compressed, and its height diminishes quite insensibly from before backwards.

The color is dark olive brown above, mottled with blackish brown; sowe what yellow about the lower part of the abdomen, and whitish underneath.

From Michipicotin.

It is very difficult to decide what are the characters which distinguish Lota compressa from Lota maculosa. It seems that the species is generally smaller. Lesueur gives to it an upper jaw longer than the lower, a character alternately given to it and L. maculosa by the authors who have written after him. Whether the body is proportionally shorter is to be verified anew, as also the greater compression of the sides, and the back, which is said to be highest at the basis of the dorsal fins. Lesueur adds, as a character, a more elongated caudal, an equal dorsal and anal.

The description of Dr. Storer, the only one which has been made from nature since Lesueur, as it is not comparative, does not solve the question.

SALMONIDE.

So long as the family of Salmonidæ remains circumscribed as it was established by Cuvier, it seems to be a type almost universally diffused over the globe, occurring equally in the sea and in freshwater, so that we are left almost without a clue to its natural relations to the surrounding world. Joh. Müller, working out some suggestions of prince Canino, and introducing among them more precise anatomical characters, had no sooner subdivided the old family of Salmonida into his Salmonidæ, Characini and Scopelini, than light immediately spread over this field. Limited now to such fishes as, in addition to the mere general character of former Salmonidæ, have a false gill on the inner surface of the operculum, the Salmonidæ appeared at once as fishes peculiar to the northern temperate region, occurring in immense numbers all around the Arctic Sea, and running regularly up the rivers at certain seasons of the year to deposit their spawn, while some live permanently in freshwater. We have thus in the true Salmonidæ actually a northern family of fishes, which,

when found in more temperate regions, occurs there in clear mountain rivers, sometimes very high above the level of the sea, near the limits of perpetual snow, or in deep, cold lakes. That this family is adapted to the cold regions is most remarkably exemplified by the fact that they all spawn late in the season, at the approach of autumn or winter, when frost or snow has reduced the temperature of the water in which they live nearly to its lowest natural point. The embryos grow within the egg very slowly for about two months before they are hatched; while fecundated eggs of some other families which spawn in spring and summer, give birth to young fishes a few days after they are laid. The Salmonidæ, on the contrary, are born at an epoch when the waters are generally frozen up; that is, at a period when the maximum of temperature is at the bottom of the water, where the eggs and young salmons remain among gravel, surrounded by a medium which scarcely ever rises above thirty or forty degrees.

It is plain from these statements, and from what we know otherwise of the habits of this family, that there is no one upon the globe living under more uniform circumstances, and nevertheless the species are extremely diversified, and we find peculiar ones in all parts of the world, where the family occurs at all. Thus we find, in Lake Superior, species which do not exist in the course of the Mackenzie or Saskatchawan, and vice versa, others in the Columbia river which differ from those of the Lena, Obi, and Yenisei, while Europe again has its peculiar forms.

Whoever takes a philosophical view of the subject of Natural History, and is familiar with the above stated facts, will now understand why, notwithstanding the specific distinctions there are between them, the trouts and whitefishes are so uniform all over the globe. It must be acknowledged that it is owing to the uniformity of the physical conditions in which they occur, and to which they are so admirably adapted by their anatomical structure, as well as by their instinct. Running up and down the rapid rivers and mountain currents, leaping even over considerable waterfalls, they are provided with most powerful and active muscles, their tail is strong and fleshy, and its broad basis indicates that its power is concentrated; it is like the paddle of the Indian who propels his canoe over the same waters. Their

mouth is large, their jaw strong, their teeth powerful, to enable them to secure with ease the scanty prey with which they meet in these deserts of cold water, and nevertheless, though we cannot but be struck by the admirable reciprocal adaptation between the structure of the northern animals and the physical condition in which they live, let us not mistake these adaptations for a consequence of physical causes, let us not say that trouts resemble each other so much because they originated under uniform conditions; let us not say they have uniform habits because there is no scope for diversity; let us not say they spawn during winter, and rear their young under snow and ice, because at that epoch they are safer from the attacks of birds of prey; let us not say they are so intimately connected with the physical world, because physical powers called them into existence; but let us at once look deeper; let us recognize that this uniformity is imparted to a wonderfully complicated structure; they are trouts with all their admirable structure, their peculiar back bones, their ornamented skull, their powerful jaws, their movable eyes, with their thick, fatty skin and elegant scales, their ramified fin-rays, and with all that harmonious complication of structure which characterizes the type of trouts, but over which a uniform robe, as it were, is spread in a manner not unlike an almost endless series of monotonous variations upon one brilliant air, through the uniformity of which we still detect the same melody, however disguised, under the many undulations and changes of which it is capable.

The instincts of trouts are not more controlled by climate than those of other animals under different circumstances. They are only made to perform at a particular season, best suited to their organization, what others do at other times. If it were not so, I do not see why all the different fishes, living all the year round in the same brook, should not spawn at the same season, and finally be transformed into one type; have we not, on the contrary, in this diversity under identical circumstances, a demonstrative evidence that there is another cause which has acted, and is still acting, in the production and preservation of these adaptations; a cause which endowed living beings with the power of resisting the equalizing influence of uniform agents, though at the same time placing these agents and living beings under definite relations to each other?