Our Fish Immigrants 



393 



variation, and numerous varieties or 

 species are now recognized. The form 

 that has been most extensively cultivated 

 and disseminated came from McCloud 

 River, in California, the site of the first 

 salmon-hatching work in the west. This 

 stream is fed by melting snows on Mount 

 Shasta, and its picturesqueness is worthy 

 of the beautiful fish it has given to the 

 outside world. The station in the east 

 at which the species has been most largely 

 propagated is at Wytheville, in the Alle- 

 ghany Mountains of southwest Virginia. 



Ichthyologists have not fully decided 

 whether the steelhead trout of the Pa- 

 cific Coast rivers is a distinct species or 

 only a rainbow trout that has the habits 

 of the salmons. In the west it is classed 

 with the salmons because of its size and 

 migrations ; but in the east it has readily 

 taken on the characteristics of a strictly 

 fresh-water species, and has become a 

 competitor of the land-locked salmon. 

 The first successful attempt to bring this 

 excellent food and game fish within reach 

 of the people east of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains was in 1896, when the planting of 

 fry in rivers at the western end of Lake 

 Superior was begun. In the following 

 year many fine specimens were caught in 

 those streams, and in 1S98 fishermen set- 

 ting nets in deep water for lake trout 

 began to take large steelheads along the 

 American and Canadian shores of the 

 lake, and in the same year fly-fishermen 

 of Duluth caught in French and Sucker 

 rivers not less than 2,000, the largest 28 

 inches long. The species is now firmly 

 established in Lake Superior and will 

 doubtless in time spread to others of the 

 Great Lakes. The Bureau of Fisheries 

 has recently begun the hatching of eggs 

 from wild fish taken in streams near 

 Duluth. Each season eggs of the steel- 

 head are sent from points on the Pacific 

 coast to stations in the east where the 

 hatching in completed, and the species 

 has obtained a firm hold in a number of 

 New England lakes and has proved an 

 acceptable addition to the fish supply. 



A group of trouts of the rainbow series 

 inhabits a circumscribed area in the high 



Sierra Mountains of southern California 

 in the vicinity of Mount Whitney. All 

 of them are extremely handsome, and two 

 of them, known as golden trouts, only 

 recently discovered by the Bureau of 

 Fisheries, may fairly be regarded as 

 among the most daint)' and beautiful of 

 the entire trout tribe. One has been 

 named for that charming writer of west- 

 ern sketches, Stewart Edward White ; the 

 other enjoys the distinction of bearing the 

 name of that mighty hunter and fisher- 

 man, Theodore Roosevelt. It lives in 

 a snow-fed creek on the southern slope 

 of the Sierras, and its habitat is so re- 

 stricted and the number of individuals is 

 relatively so few that grave fears have 

 been felt that what is easily possible 

 might quickly come to pass — the com- 

 plete extermination of the species. The 

 Federal Fishery Bureau has therefore sent 

 to the scene a party which has brought 

 out on the backs of mules, over an ex- 

 tremely difficult, almost perpendicular, 

 trail of 20 miles, a brood stock of golden 

 trout, and has transferred them to va- 

 rious suitable stations at which they will 

 be cultivated. If all goes well, it will be 

 only a few years before anglers in all 

 parts of the country are casting flies for 

 the golden trout, whose gameness equals 

 its beauty. 



PACIFIC SALMON FOR EASTERN STREAMS 



The most momentous experiments in 

 fish transplanting now in progress are 

 addressed to the Pacific salmons, and per- 

 haps the greatest boon the west is 

 destined to confer on the east is the re- 

 plenishing of the New England streams 

 with salmon. The physical conditions in 

 the streams that formerly were inhabited 

 by the Atlantic salmon forbid the possi- 

 bility of ever reestablishing that species, 

 but it may be that some of the Pacific 

 salmons will find those waters congenial. 

 Trials in the east began with the Chinook 

 salmon — the largest and best of the 

 tribe — and there have been a few en- 

 couraging successes reported from the 

 Saint Lawrence basin and from Maine; 

 but it would appear that this species re- 



