HOW. THE TROUT CAME TO CALIFORNIA. 267 
HOW THE TROUT CAME TO 
CALIFORNIA. 
S HE ultimate result of centuries on centuries 
of the restlessness of individuals is seen in 
the facts of geographical distribution. Only in the 
most general way can the history of any species 
be traced ; but could we know it all, it would be 
as long and as eventful a story as the history of 
the colonization and settlement of North America 
by immigrants from Europe. By the fishes each 
river in America has been a hundred times dis- 
covered, its colonization a hundred times at- 
tempted. In these efforts there is no co-operation. 
Every individual is for himself. Every struggle is 
a struggle of life and death. Each fish is a canni- 
bal, and to each species each member of every 
other species is an alien and a savage.”’ 
In the light of this statement which I had occa- 
sion to make about ten years ago, we may try 
to find out how the trout! came to California. 
1 [ here use the word “‘trout,” as it is used in England, for the 
black-spotted fishes of the genus Sa/mo which retain the teeth on 
the shaft of the vomer, and which’inhabit the streams and lakes 
of regions where water is cold and clear. I distinguish the trout 
from the marine and anadromous salmon, on the one hand, and 
from the fine-scaled red-spotted charr (Sa/velinus) on the other. 
If our Pilgrim Fathers had sailed from Cumberland or West- 
moreland instead of from Devonshire, they would never have 
