Golden Trout 269 



pounds, was bluish in color above the lateral line, 

 and profusely black spotted, but with no golden 

 hues, and with distinct slashes of reddish orange 

 along the throat, and a well-defined pinkish lat- 

 eral band, a typical rainbow. Going up the creek, 

 which came roaring down the gorge, with the 

 same tackle and lures, a trout weighing half a 

 pound, orange-hued, but without the bright golden 

 coloration of one which I caught an hour after- 

 ward above the falls, distant only about five hun- 

 dred yards farther up the stream. I could not 

 understand at the time this singular confusion of 

 form and coloration caught in the same water, 

 and so near each other, except by concluding the 

 first fish, taken in the lower part of the creek near 

 its mouth, was a pure Kern River form; the 

 second a fish of the same species visiting or liv- 

 ing in Whitney's Creek, the waters of which were 

 of a milky color having chemical constituents that 

 effected, slowly or instantaneously, the sensitive 

 color pigments under the skin of the fish. The 

 typical golden trout taken above the falls was a 

 perfect specimen, similar in coloration and char- 

 acteristic markings, as above described. Thus 

 my experience on this outing leads me to believe 

 in the dicta of American ichthyologists that the 



