140 Fish Stories 



usually spelled, is better Latin. Gibbons' specimens came 

 from San Leandro Creek, near Alameda. 



The rainbow trout has larger scales than the others, 

 usually one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and 

 thirty, in a lengthwise row. The dorsal fin is high, having 

 usually seven to ten rows of black spots. The old males 

 show a good deal of bright red along the side. There are 

 no teeth on the middle line of the tongue. The head is 

 larger than in any other of these trout, its length being con- 

 tained from three and one-half to four times in the length 

 of the body, measured along the side from the tip of the 

 snout to the base of the caudal fin. There is usually no red 

 behind the lower jaw, although in large fishes of the upper 

 Sierras this shade sometimes appears. In little streams the 

 rainbow is mature at six inches, but in larger streams, and 

 in the estuaries, it reaches a weight of six to eight pounds, 

 and in lakes, as Klamath, attains a maximum weight of 

 about twenty- four pounds. 



Brook specimens are usually most profusely spotted, but 

 in the sea these spots are more or less obscured by a silvery 

 sheen. In coastwise streams it runs up the streams in 

 March to spawn, like a salmon, being able to leap over 

 small waterfalls. 



The rainbow, on the whole, is probably the gamest of the 

 trout, taking a fly eagerly and responding also to the lure 

 of a grasshopper or a salmon egg. The range of the rain- 

 bow trout extends southward to San Luis Rey River in 

 Southern California. Across the Mexican line in Lower 

 California, in the mountain called San Pedro Martir, is a 

 dwarf variant rainbow called Salmo nelsoni, the southern- 

 most and smallest of all trout. Perhaps even more than any 

 other trout this species varies with its surroundings. 



Another species of trout perhaps derived from the rain- 

 bow, perhaps far older, but at any rate very distinct, occurs 

 on San Gorgonio Mountain in Southern California, where 

 it has only lately been found by Professor Joseph Grinnell. 



