THE GOLDEN TROUT OF VOLCANO CREEK. 
BY DR. BARTON W. EVERMANN, OF WASHINGTON, D. C. 
I shall take but a few minutes to tell something about the 
Golden trout of Volcano Creek, California. There was not very 
much known about this very interesting species of trout until 
recently. Up to 1875 nothing whatever was known regarding 
the trout of the Southern High Sierras. In that year certain 
specimens were collected from the south fork of the Kern River, 
and identified as the common rainbow trout. Nothing more 
was known from 1875 until 1891, when members of the Biolog- 
ical Survey of the Department of Agriculture and certain gen- 
tlemen living at Lone Pine, in California, collected specimens 
of trout in this region. 
The locality is southeast from San Francisco, 250 to 300 
miles. It is the culmination of the High Sierras, Mt. Whitney, 
the highest mountain in the United States, being within this 
region; and the streams to which | have referred nearly all have 
their headwaters in and about Mt. Whitney and its neighboring 
peaks. Just over the divide is Owens Lake, in Inyo county and 
east of Tulare county. Volcano Creek is due west from Owens 
Lake. 
In 1891 certain gentlemen at Lone Pine collected specimens 
of a trout and sent them to the Nevada State Fish Commis- 
sioner, who forwarded them to the California State Fish Com- 
missioner, San Francisco, and they finally fell into the hands of 
Dr. Jordan of Stanford University, who described the fish as a 
nw species, 
Nothing more was known of the fish until recently. Two 
years ago, Stewart Edward White, the author of the “Blazed 
Trail,” called the attention of the President to the trout of Vol- 
cano Creek, and the ease with which it might be exterminated. 
He stated to President Roosevelt that this trout is found only 
in one creek; that while it 1s abundant in that one stream, the 
number of tourists who go in there each year will be sufficient, 
unless some precautionary measures are taken, to exterminate 
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