TROUT FISHING IN THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 519 



taken and examined, I presume, forty specimens. They are 

 the same bird, but not of the same age. The black is the 



adult The differences in markings between them are 



not as great as in many birds, as, for example, in the Bald 

 Eagle, the Golden Eye, Sheldrake, etc. I have taken them 

 from those with the lightest markings to jet black, with all 

 the intermediate varieties in color. So gradually do they 

 become more and more black till jet black is reached, that I 

 will defy any one to draw the separating line. It would be 

 as difficult as to tell when the 'pig becomes a hog.'"* 



The late Mr. Lucius Clarke, of Northampton, I have been 

 informed, had a similar series, and that from an examination 

 of a large number of specimens he had arrived at the same 

 conclusion. I have not yet had an opportunity of comparing 

 a very large number, but from a study of those I have seen, 

 and of the accounts given by authors, I believe the view 

 taken by Dr. Wood and Mr. Clark to be the correct one. 



UT FISHING IN THE YOSEMITE VALLEJ^ 



BY HON. J. D. CATON. 



BY far the hardest day's work the tourist has in "doing" the 

 wonderful valley is the visit to the Vernal and the Nevada 

 falls, where the Merced River makes a clear leap of three 

 hundred feet over the first, and seven hundred feet over the 

 second. Our guide, Mr. .Cunningham, assured me that not 

 a fish of any kind is found in the river, or any of its tribu- 

 taries above the first or lower fall. Below these falls several 

 varieties occur, the most interesting and the most abundant 

 of whic^is the Speckled Trout (Salmo iridea Gib.). It 

 diffej^rmaterially from its cousin, the Speckled Trout of the 

 stern States (Salmo fontinalis), especially in habit and 



*In epist. Sept. 5, 1861. 



