54 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 56 
FISHES 
Most of the lateral canyons of the region are dry or nearly dry 
through most of the year, and hence contain no fishes. The Rio 
Grande is known to contain fishes in some portions of its course. 
The Rito de los Frijoles is at present a small stream, the waters of 
which in places sink entirely beneath the surface of the sand, leaving 
not even pools, and the water all along becomes very shallow at 
times. Limited observations make final conclusions unsafe, but 
so far as they go they seem to indicate that the water flowing in the 
creek is dependent largely on precipitation in the mountains at the 
head of the canyon. When frequent rains were occurring in the 
lower part of the valley the stream reached its lowest point, but 
during an exceedingly dry period at our camp, when it was raining 
daily in the mountains the stream kept an even flow. The absence of 
deep pools in which fish could survive an extended drouth seems 
sufficient to account for their absence. In the glaciated mountains 
farther north, the absence of fish is usually noted in streams whose 
courses present cataracts too high for the fishes to pass over in their 
upstream progression after the retreat of the glaciers. Two vertical 
falls near the mouth of this canyon, one of 60 feet, the other of 90 feet, 
would effectually block the attempts of fish to pass upstream from 
the Rio Grande. Hence any fish which may have existed in recent 
times must have been there before the falls were formed or have 
been introduced in some unusual way. The transportation of eggs 
attached to the feet of birds for the short distance over the falls 
would not be at all impossible, though such a method of dispersion 
is not so likely to occur as in case of fresh-water mollusks, etc. It is 
also possible that fish may at one time have been placed in this 
creek by former inhabitants, either the ancient dwellers who built - 
the abandoned structures or by the Mexican outlaws who made the 
canyon their rendezvous for a century or so. At any rate, trout were 
found in the stream from 20 to 30 years ago, according to information 
gleaned from several sources. Bandelier, in The Delight Makers, 
causes one of the native boys who lived in the canyon during its 
early occupancy, to catch a trout. This would scarcely be con- 
clusive if it were not that in his formal report he refers to the stream 
as a ‘‘cushing brook, enlivened by trout.”?! Dr. Charles F. Lummis, 
of Los Angeles, says he caught trout from the stream in 1891, and 
that there were certainly many pools then which do not exist now. 
Judge Abbott says he has heard the same from another visitor to the 
canyon a quarter of a century ago. 
1 Bandelier, A. F., The Delight Makers, New York, 1890, p. 5. Final Report of Investigations Among 
the Indians of the Southwestern United States, Carried on Mainly in the Years from 1880 to 1885, Part 0, 
Papers of the Archzxological Institute of America, American Series, tv, p. 139, 1892. 
