188 American Fisheries Society 



According to Jordan, then, the technical name of the steelhead 

 trout should be Salmo irideus. 



It is not my purpose, at the present time, to attempt to 

 straighten out the tangles of taxonomy, but I oflfer for con- 

 sideration a theory which appears to be supported by a number 

 of facts and which seems to me to indicate a consistent law 

 of distribution. Also, if usage is reversed and an effort made 

 to make taxonomy conform to the law, the present confusion 

 may be shaped into at least a semblance of orderly arrange- 

 ment. If the trout originated in fjords and mossy brooks on 

 the flanks of European glacial mountains, as Jordan once 

 wrote, what was the incentive for wandering to remote 

 seas? It seems to me that the present distribution into fresh 

 waters far inland must have been due to some cause other than 

 aimless wandering from one stream *to another and that it 

 must have been in conformity to some natural law. 



There is no known European or Asiatic trout closely related 

 to the small scaled forms of the Pacific coast of North 

 America. There are trout on the other side of the ocean from 

 Kamchatka to Formosa which are more nearly related to the 

 coarser scaled forms. Salmo my kiss, of Kamchatka, has 138 

 scales and the Salmo of Formosa 130, according to Jordan, 

 As Jordan now says, Salmo mykiss is more like the American 

 steelhead. It would therefore seem that the trouts of America 

 were native Americans. 



Again Jordan writes (1919) "Most primitive of the Amer- 

 ican species, no doubt, is the one named for William Clark, 

 Salmo clarkii. It was born in Alaska and has worked its way 

 southward as far as Eel River in California." The idea is im- 

 plied, perhaps, but not expressed in the foregoing, that the 

 smaller scaled species was originally associated with cold water, 

 which idea the present distribution of small scaled forms sup- 

 ports. I do not quite understand what is meant by "primitive" 

 in this instance. It would apparently signify that all the other 

 forms originated in this alleged Alaskan native. I cannot 



