RECREA TION. 



it spread over Siberia. No one can tell 

 the story of its migrations from one 

 great dreary river to another in this 

 vast region, for no one knows what it 

 does there to-day. We know that 

 Siberia is a land of trout but the names 

 of the kinds of trout in Siberia are 

 bare names to-day as they were in the 

 days of Steller and Pallas. From 

 Kamtschatka to Alaska, across the cold 

 Bering Sea, is but a step for a fish of 

 spirit, and this step is often made by 

 the trout to this day. In the Kamts- 

 chatka rivers, the trout has changed 

 somewhat from any of the varied forms 

 that are known from Europe. His 

 scales are smaller (180 instead of 130 in 

 a line along his sides) and across his 

 throat, half hidden by the branches of his 

 lower jaw, is the A shaped blotch of scar- 

 let. Such a mark is known in the north 



gave them their scientific name of Saltno 

 my kiss, and to this day, Salmo mykiss* 

 is the scientific name of the cut throat 

 trout. 



Finding Alaska a good ''fishing 

 ground," the trout spread itself through 

 all its rivers. The conditions of cold, 

 clear water from the mountains to the 

 sea are much the same all the way from 

 the Yukon to Fraser's river, and the 

 Columbia, and even as far south as the 

 Umpqua and the Klamath. To all 

 these, one after another, the cut throat 

 trout came from the north. The ocean 

 offering easy access from the mouth of 

 one to the mouth of another, there is very 

 little difference to this day among the 

 colonies inhabiting the different river 

 basins. The Mad river and Elk river 

 in Humbolt county, California, mark 

 the southern limit of the extension of 



BLACK SPOTTED TROUT. Salmo Mykiss. 



as the sign manual of the Sioux Indian. 

 It is the mark of the cut throat trout. 

 This trout freely enters the sea in 

 Alaska to-day, and he has done so ever 

 since he came to that region. Thus he 

 passes readily from one stream to 

 another ; one colony mixing freely with 

 another, till from one end of the terri- 

 tory to another the trout are virtually 

 alike. In the brooks they grow slowly 

 and in the sea rapidly, but the streams 

 are clear and the sea is cold. If food 

 is scarce in the rivers, there is a clear 

 passage from them to the ocean with no 

 alkaline basin or mud-flat to be crossed. 

 For these reasons the trout of Alaska 

 and Kamtschatka have remained uni- 

 form in appearance. They are all alike, 

 cut throat trout. A hundred and fifty 

 years ago, the Russians in Kamtschatka 

 called them Mykiss. From this, in 1792, 

 the old German compiler, Walbaum, 



the cut throat trout along the west 

 coast, by processes of ordinary transfer 

 from river to river by way of the sea. 



Ascending the Columbia river, the 

 trout spread itself widely in the streams 

 of the green and moist region west of 

 the Cascade Range and through the 

 arid lava-strewn wildernesses which lie 

 to the east. Each stream received its 

 quota of trout, but as the way was 

 open up and down the stream, the 

 species remained essentially as it was in 

 Alaska. Isolation or separation from 

 the main body in some way is a prime 



* By the laws of scientific nomenclature, the oldest 

 name of any species is its right name, all questions as 

 to which name is the best or sounds the best being dis- 

 regarded. The cut throat trout was called Salmo 

 mykiss in Kamtschatka by Walbaum, in 1792; Salmo 

 muikisi by Schneider, in 1801 ; Salmo purpuratus,\sy 

 Pallas, in 1811, his specimens being also the Mykiss of 

 Kamtschatka. It was named Salmo clarkii, by 

 Richardson, in 1836, from Columbia river specimens. 

 A number of other names, as Salmo stellatus, brevi- 

 cauda, aurora and gibbsii were applied to specimens 

 brought in by the Pacific Railroad Survey. 



