The Days of a Man CiSys 



T:rout which had been gathered by the Pacific Railway 

 ^'^•'f^ Survey of the '50's and by subsequent collectors, 

 the most important series being from the new 

 hatchery on the Clackamas River in Oregon. Pre- 

 vious investigators with inadequate material had 

 greatly exaggerated the number of actual species, 

 and the whole matter was in utter confusion. My 

 tentative conclusions, published in 1878, were after- 

 ward supplemented by the intensive operations 

 (soon to be discussed) of Jordan and Gilbert in 

 1880. Of the salmon there are five very distinct 

 species on the Pacific Coast; among the trout, species 

 are numerous and very closely related, shading off 

 one into another. 



Baird asked to have common names attached to 

 the different forms. For the trout of the coastwise 

 streams, the Salmo irideus of Dr. W. P. Gibbons, I 

 naturally suggested " Rainbow Trout," and I may 

 note that the big fish of the river mouths and chan- 

 nels, the *' Steelhead," is merely the sea-run adult 

 of the "Rainbow." I should further explain that 

 the so-called " Rainbow Trout," since distributed 

 the world over from the hatchery at Baird on the 

 McCloud River, is a distinct species — Salmo shasta 

 — which for convenience I call "Shasta Rainbow." 



Another fine form with bright crimson spots — 

 Salvelinus malma — had been sent to Washington 

 from the upper Sacramento, with the comment that 

 the landlady at Upper Soda Springs declared it 

 looked "like a regular Dolly Varden." This likeness 

 to the "plump, coquettish little minx " of Dickens' 

 Barnaby Rudge" pleased Baird, and he remarked: 

 That's a good name; call it Dolly Varden." And 

 Dolly Varden it remains to this day! 



: 164 J 





