30 CAMP-FIRES IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES 



upper lip to tail tip with small elliptical black spots that 

 stand vertically. The lower half of the body is suffused 

 with a warm sunset glow of pinkish color, while the 

 under surface is silvery white. The lower edge of each 

 membrane covering the gills, under the head, looks as 

 if a painter had given each side a stroke with a paint- 

 brush charged with rose-madder, making a red V; and 

 from this " effect," suggesting a cut throat, has come the 

 gruesome English name by which this fish is known to 

 the great majority of its acquaintances. The real Dolly- 

 Varden Trout is a charr (Salvelinus parkei)^ closely 

 related to the spotted brook-trout, with a much more 

 pointed head, light spots instead of dark, and only one- 

 fourth as many of them as the Cut-Throat. Both species, 

 however, inhabit the mountain-streams of the Pacific 

 slope from California and Montana to Alaska. 



But all this while we lost no time in moralizing over 

 the exact scientific status and affinities of our first fish. 

 From start to finish it was a wild revel. I soon became 

 so set up with four or five big fish that I refused to 

 engage any small fry. Whenever I saw a small fish dart 

 toward my fly, I snatched it away from him, and angled 

 for his betters. Whenever by any untoward accident a 

 one-pound fish took the hook in spite of me, we landed 

 him without loss of time, took the hook from his lip, and 

 with an admonition never to do so any more until he got 

 big, gently dropped him back home. 



The Cut-Throat Trout is, after all, a dainty biter. 

 Although he takes an imitation may-fly swiftly, and even 

 joyously, he does not greedily gulp it far down into his 



