282 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 
science through the enthusiastic devotion of Rear- 
Admiral Beardslee, who regards it as the finest of 
all trout, and who has taken specimens of ten 
pounds’ weight in this wonderful lake. This form 
differs from the Steel-head in its large scales and 
large head, and is one of the best marked of all the 
trout-forms in the northwest. 
In the same lake occurs another splendid trout 
of large size, the Crescent Trout.! It seems to be 
also an offshoot from the Steel-head, but its head 
is quite different in cut and much larger in size. 
Its scales are considerably smaller than in the 
Beardslee trout, and in both the black spots are 
small and scattered. 
If what I think to-day is the truth for to-morrow, 
the Steel-head passed southward from the Colum- 
bia along the California coast, entering the brooks 
of the Coast Range, spawning there and passing 
back into the sea, — but not always, for some- 
times it had gone so far from the ocean that it 
could never get back in its lifetime, — the whole 
western flank of the Sierra Nevada being full 
of trout brooks. The trout came into them. They 
stayed because it was good to be there. And 
from Steel-head stock may have come the splendid 
trout of the Kern already mentioned, Salmo gatra- 
nevi gilbertt, It is probably more like the original 
Steel-head than the Steel-head itself now is; for it 
has red under the throat, like its great-grandfather 
mykiss. In any event, it fills the Kern River now, 
and is ready for any angler who invades its rocky 
fastnesses. 
1 The Crescent Trout is Salmo crescentis Jordan & Beardslee. 
