Trout and Salmon 177 



landlocked salmon j but the fresh waters were essentially the 

 domain of Salvelinus fontinalis. 



The Pacific seaboard was the domain of the genus Salmo, 

 Not a single eastern brook trout was to be found between 

 the Mississippi basin and the west coast. His cousin, the 

 Dolly Varden, Salvelinus malma, abounded in Alaska, and 

 trickled south as far as northern California, while the Pacific 

 salmon, a different genus from the Atlantic, made annual 

 invasions from the ocean. But the Rockies and the Sierras, 

 and all the streams flowing out of them, were the strong- 

 hold of Salmo clarkiiy the cutthroat, and Salmo gairdneriiy 

 the rainbow. And it is in these groups, and especially in the 

 latter, that the worst complications arise. For it is easy 

 enough to tell the eastern brook and the Dolly Varden and 

 the Pacific salmon apart, but the rainbow in all his manifesta- 

 tions — Kern River trout, Kamloops trout, golden trout, steel- 

 head — is a puzzle. He is an impressionable creature with 

 whom evolution is still having its way, cutting him off in 

 isolated groups from his brothers and sisters by geographic 

 barriers, and bringing about the changes which, little by 

 little, separate such colonies into distinct forms. Were it not 

 for the interference of man, mixing the waters of different 

 streams and watersheds with his engineering works, and 

 mixing the different strains of trout with his hatchery fish, 

 nature's processes could be expected to continue until clear- 

 cut distinctions became evident. As it is, the taxonomic situ- 

 ation appears to be growing more confused, and we shall not 

 attempt to untangle it here. 



There is one question, however, which we must answer, 

 and that is the old one. What is a steelhead? It is really very 

 simple, and apparently the only reason why it keeps baffling 

 people is that they refuse to believe what science tells them. 

 The steelhead is a rainbow trout which goes out to sea for 

 part of its life and returns to spawn in fresh water. The 



