142 CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME, 
known, all four species are native to the head waters of the Kern 
River. * 
The distinctive characteristics of these diversified types is more 
readily appreciated if the geographical isolation of their habitat is 
understood. It has been stated that the Kern trout, Salmo gilberti, 
is the parent species of the golden trout, and as may be inferred from 
the name, is native to the Kern River. This river-is of considerable 
iT, 
Ba 
Hie. 37. Agua-bonita Falls on Volcano Creek, the stream which 
is the original home of the golden trout. Photograph by W. Y. 
Kellogg. 
width and flows through a most inspiring, deep, rugged, high Sierran 
canyon, and in ages past, when the glacial period wrought its stupen- 
dous changes, the Kern River trout, native then to not only the Kern 
River but to its tributory streams—Voleano Creek, South Fork of the 
Kern and the Little Kern and Soda Creek—hbecame isolated in these 
different streams by the formation of unsurmountable barriers, and 
each group being acted upon by the influences of its own peculiar 
environment, with no opportunity for interbreeding of groups, resulted, 
