The two kinds of char, most commonly to be obtained by the amateur, are the Alpine and the Windermere char. The ova of these fish will be received shortly before they are ready to hatch out, as was the case with the trout ova. The amateur's difficulties will, however, begin almost at once, for in the act of hatching out considerable mortality among the char often occurs. Trout almost invariably emerge from the egg tail first. As soon as the tail is free the little fish begins to move it rapidly, using it as a propeller with which to swim about and thus soon works completely out of the egg. Occasionally, however, trout hatch out head first, and in these cases the young fish generally dies before it can set itself free from the coverings of the ovum. Buckland observed that the alevins of the char very frequently hatch out head first, and consequently that many of them die before they can work themselves free from the eggs. If it were possible to have some one constantly watching the ova at the time that they are hatching out, it would be possible to save a very large proportion of them, as they may be very effectually helped out of the egg with a feather or soft camel's-hair brush; but this is, of course, quite impracticable, unless there is some one constantly watching the ova, as the delay of even a few minutes will mean the death of the fish. This peculiarity in the hatching out of the char has also been observed by Mr. J. J. Armistead, and I have been able to verify it personally. The mortality which occurs in the actual hatching out of the alevins does not, however, by any means end the trouble which the fish culturist has to encounter in the rearing of char. They require much more persuasion and care when they begin to feed and throughout the whole of the summer. The percentage of deaths is always greater than in the case of the trouts, not excluding the _fontinalis_, which is, as I have already explained, not really a trout but a char. Though there must be some doubt as to its success, I should like to see a really serious attempt at introducing char into some deep and large ponds in the south of England. Char have been very successfully reared in shallow water, which was certainly not kept at a particularly low temperature, so I see no reason why this fish should not do in some of our more southern waters. One drawback to the chance of this attempt being made, however, is that the char cannot be considered as being a fish which gives very good sport, and I very much doubt whether any one is likely to try the experiment simply to find out whether they would or would not succeed in the south of England. CHAPTER XII SALMON AND SEA-TROUT