HOW THE TROUT CAME TO CALIFORNIA. 267 



HOW THE TROUT CAME TO 

 CALIFORNIA. 



ultimate result of centuries on centuries 

 of the restlessness of individuals is seen in 

 the facts of geographical distribution. Only in the 

 most general way can the history of any species 

 be traced ; but could we know it all, it would be 

 as long and as eventful a story as the history of 

 the colonization and settlement of North America 

 by immigrants from Europe. By the fishes each 

 river in America has been a hundrecT~times dis- 

 covered, its colonization a hundred times at- 

 tempted. In these efforts there is no co-operation. 

 Every individual is for himself. Every struggle is 

 a strugjrie^of Jjfe and death. Each fish is a canni- 

 bal, and to each species each member of every 

 other species is an alien and a savage." 



In the light of this statement which I had occa- 

 sion to make about ten years ago, we may try 

 to find out how the trout * came to California. 



1 I here use the word " trout," as it is used in England, for the 

 black-spotted fishes of the genus Salmo which retain the teeth on 

 the shaft of the vomer, and which inhabit the streams and lakes 

 of regions where water is cold and clear. I distinguish the trout 

 from the marine and anadromous salmon, on the one hand, and 

 from the fine-scaled red-spotted charr (Salvelinus) on the other. 

 If our Pilgrim Fathers had sailed from Cumberland or West- 

 moreland instead of from Devonshire, they would never have 



