THE SALMON FAMILY. 71 
Range or of the Sierra Nevada. It varies much 
in size; specimens from northern California often 
reach a weight of six pounds, while in the Rio-San 
Luis Rey, the southernmost locality from which I 
have obtdined trout, they seldom exceed a length 
of six inches. Although not an anadromous spe- 
cies, the rainbow trout frequently moves about in 
the rivers, and it often enters the sea. Several at- 
tempts have been made to introduce it in Eastern 
streams. It is apparently more hardy and less 
greedy than the American Charr, or Brook Trout 
(Salvelinus fontinalis). On the other hand, it is 
distinctly inferior to the latter in beauty and in 
gaminess. 
The Steel-head (Salmo gairdneri) is a large 
trout, of twelve to twenty pounds in weight, found 
very abundantly in the mouth of the Columbia 
and other rivers, in the spring, at the time of the 
early salmon run. These are evidently spent 
fishes. This fact would indicate a spawning time 
later (probably midwinter) than that of the sal- 
mon, and their occurrence in the river at the 
salmon run is evidently due to a return toward the 
sea. Steel-heads are occasionally taken in the Sac- 
ramento, but in the Columbia they are abundant. 
They are rejected by the salmon fishermen, as 
their flesh is pale, and the bones are much more 
firmly ossified than in the species of Oxcorhynchus. 
The soft characters of the bones in the latter 
group, as compared with those of the larger trout, 
is one feature of their excellence as food, espe- 
cially in the canned condition. 
Comparing the steel-heads with the rainbow 
