Distribution 201 



All these fish are classed under the cut-throat 

 species because of the crimson slash appearing 

 on the under jaw or throat-latch ; but this mark- 

 ing is frequently indistinct and occasionally 

 absent, and to render confusion more pro- 

 nounced, these cut-throat trout frequently have 

 a faint, sometimes bright, pinkish lateral band 

 upon them, thus encroaching on the distinctive 

 marking of the rainbow series of fishes. 



In Wood River, a few miles from Ketchum, 

 in southern Idaho, I have taken a trout with no 

 tracing of the crimson markings on the throat- 

 latch or lower jaw, but with a bright, broad band 

 of pink along the lateral line, and have not, as 

 yet, been satisfied as to its correct classification 

 — it may have been a cut-throat, or it may have 

 been a rainbow, for we are told by ichthyologists 

 that the three series of western salmon-trouts — 

 the cut-throat, rainbow, and steelhead — are only 

 provisionally retained as distinct, the prominent 

 differentiation between them being only in the 

 number and size of the scales and the apparently 

 diverse coloration of the fish. 



Anglers all know that the male of the eastern 

 red-spotted trout {foiitinalis) is much more 

 highly colored during the spawning season than 



