THE BLACK-SPOTTED MOUNTAIN TROUT 

 (Salmo stomias and related species) 



By S. E. Land 



Introductory comment by the reader. 



Before I read my paper I would like to make a few re- 

 marks on the paper that our worthy President, Mr. Ful- 

 lerton, brought up at the St. Louis meeting. The food 

 problem regarding trout, and the question now before us 

 of how we shall raise the standard of the domesticated 

 trout, are important. The problem is, how can we make 

 them produce a progeny equal to that of the wild trout? 

 I have on exhibition here trout that have been introduced 

 in the State of Colorado from California. They grow to 

 great size in our waters, in our cold streams fed apparently 

 by snow water, especially in the month of June, and there 

 the development of the eggs is retarded, because they are 

 transferred from California, where in their natural habitat 

 they reproduce in February and March, and in our icy ele- 

 vation of ten thousand feet they do not reproduce until the 

 latter part of June and up to the 10th of July, keeping their 

 reproduction of eggs back for five months. Nevertheless 

 they grow to a great size. This first trout which I exhibit 

 was caught in the southern part of the state by a man pres- 

 ent here today, from Elbow Creek, that empties into Electric 

 Lake twenty miles from Durango. I helped land that fish. 

 From that lake we took two million eggs of the rainbow 

 trout. This second trout was taken from the headwaters 

 tributary to the Rio Grande from Charles Mason's Lake. 

 It is a cutthroat trout with the fine spots (Salmo spilurus) 

 and is known as the black-spotted mountain trout. We have 

 also the black-spotted mountain trout with large spots that 

 lives in the higher waters of the mountains and never moves 

 from this environment. 



