136 Fish Stories 



1889, and named for the head of the Fish Commission, 

 Colonel Marshall MacDonald. Since that time several at- 

 tempts have been made to recover the species, but Mr. 

 Fisher has removed from Denver to Seattle, I believe, and 

 his splendid fish rises to no other fly. The green-back trout 

 is common enough in the same lake. 



In the Rio Grande is still another cut-throat trout of the 

 general type of the green-back. This is Salmo spilurus. 

 It is extremely abundant in San Luis Park and about 

 Wagon Wheel Gap, and in the brooks of the Sangre de 

 Cristo Mountains. It ranges far southward into the moun- 

 tain brooks of Chihuahua. 



Very close to the Rio Grande trout is the trout of the 

 Colorado, Salmo pleuriticus, a kind which, like the others 

 of the Rocky Mountain region, has its spots mostly bunched 

 on the posterior part of the body. The scales are smaller 

 than in the others, and the lower fins are rather orange 

 than red. Another of the most direct descendants of the 

 cut-throat trout is the Tahoe trout, Salmo henshawi, which 

 is confined to the streams and lakes of the desert of Nevada, 

 the basin of the former Lake Lahontan. 



It is found in Lake Tahoe, where it was discovered by 

 Dr. Henry W. Henshaw, in 1877, and named by Gill and 

 Jordan in 1878. It descends in the Truckee.to Pyramid 

 Lake, whence it comes in large numbers to the markets of 

 San Francisco. It is found also in Donner, Webber and 

 Independence Lakes. It is found also in the Carson and 

 the Humboldt — both once tributaries of the vanished 

 glacial lake called Lahontan. From the Truckee it has been 

 introduced into the Feather, the Stanislaus and the Moke- 

 lumne, on the western slope of the Sierras. 



The Tahoe trout is plainly a cut-throat, having the same 

 red dashes under the throat, the same long head, small scales 

 and teeth on the base of the tongue. It is, however, browner 

 or yellower in color, and the spots are always larger, cover- 

 ing the belly as well as the back of the fish. 



