REPORT OF STATE BOARD OP FISH COMMISSIONERS 87 



a change in the tension at which the fish holds his scales. All trout 

 show some reddish shades on body or fins. Those which show most red 

 on a red ground were most likely to escape from the birds. Those 

 darkest in shade, most brown or green, were the ones likely to be 

 taken first. They are of the usual trout color, the color the birds per- 

 haps expect, and they are most easily seen against the background of 

 the red rocks. This explanation of the Golden trout and of the reasons 

 why three parallel species of this type have arisen under parallel con- 

 ditions may or may not be satisfactory, but it is the only one yet 

 suggested. We can not think of any other explanation. It is certain 

 that in some fashion in California, or anywhere else, a red bottom 

 produces red fish. And the rocks and the fish do not use the same 

 chemicals in producing this result. 



All these species, the Cut-throat trout, the Steelhead trout, and the 

 Rainbow trout, with their several allies and descendants, are true 

 trout, belonging to the genus Salmo, and all of them are dwarfed rep- 

 resentatives of the salmon of the Atlantic. All of them have silvery 

 scales; all are black spotted; all have the anal fin short, with but ten, 

 eleven or twelve developed rays. All are likely to run down into the 

 sea if they can, and into little streams to spawn, their eggs ripening 

 in the spring or summer. There is not much difference between males 

 and females. The old males have the jaws lengthened a little, but 

 never hooked, as in the Pacific salmon. The same fish may spawn a 

 number of times, while with the Pacific salmon a fish spawns but once, 

 dying in a week or so after casting the eggs or the milt. 



In Europe the name trout is given only to the black-spotted forms, 

 which, together with the Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar, constitute the 

 genus Salmo. 



To the very fine-scaled, red-spotted forms of the cold streams and 

 alpine lakes, constituting the genus Salvelinus, the people of England 

 have always given the name of char. The char of Europe, known in 

 Germany as "Saibling, " and in France as "Ombre Chevalier," is in 

 science Salvelinus alpinus. 



Closely related to this char of Europe are two or three species found 

 in Canada and the Northeast. The Eastern "brook trout," or 

 "speckled trout," the trout of our fathers and grandfathers, is a char, 

 Salvelinus fontinalis. There is no higher praise to be given to any 

 trout-like fish than to say that it is a char. In strict truth, there is 

 no trout to be found in the United States or Canada, east of the great 

 plains, except where the Rainbow trout or the brown trout of Europe, 

 or some other of their kind, has been planted. 



DOLLY VARDEN TROUT, OR MALMA. 



The Pacific slope has one char, the Malma, or Dolly Varden, known 

 in science as Salvelinus malma. In 1878, when the present writer first 



