RECREA TION. 



ii 



The San Joaquin meets the Sacra- 

 mento end to end and the two break 

 through the coast range to the sea. In 

 the Upper Sacramento is occasionally 

 taken a trout which the Indians call 

 No-Shee* or Nissuee, and which must 

 resemble the original stock of the San 

 Joaquin. It has the small scales of the 

 Kern river fish, but the red cut-throat 

 mark is gone and the spots are few and 

 sparse. It is a large trout, and is but 

 rarely taken, the specimens now known 

 being from the McCloud. 



The common trout of the Upper 

 Sacramento may be descended from 

 this, but its scales are larger, its body 

 deeper, the red band on the sides more 

 distinct and there is at least a trace of 

 the cut-throat mark, showing where its 

 tribe came from. This trout is the one 

 distributed from the hatchery at Baird 

 as the California Rainbow trout, f and 

 planted, often ineffectively, in many 

 eastern rivers. It passes by degrees into 

 the common trout of the Coast Range, 

 smaller, with large scales, white throat, 

 and varying much with streams and 

 food. The trout of the little Coast RangeJ 

 is found all the way from Washington 

 to the Mexican line. It abounds in Rio 

 San Luis Rey, in San Diego county, and 

 I have heard of its occurrence across 

 the border. In no two streams does 

 this Coast Range trout seem to be 

 exactly the same, and in all it is small, 

 speckled and vigorous. In one stream 

 of the Redwood country, Purisima 

 creek, in San Mateo county, there is a 

 high waterfall where it drops into the 

 sea. No trout can climb this fall and 

 those who are above it have been there 

 for many generations. These Purisima 

 trout, as the name befits, are the bright- 

 est in color of all the trout of the 

 mountains. When the trout which have 

 gone down over the Purisima falls re- 

 appear in other streams, as they often 

 do, we can still know them by the 

 brightness of their colors. We recog- 

 nize the mark of " La Purisima Con- 

 cepcion." 



* The No-Shee trout is Salmo gairdneri stonei, Jor- 

 dan, named for its discoverer Livingston Stone, the 

 veteran fish culturist of the U. S. Hatchery at Baird, 

 California. 



t The Rainbow trout of the Upper Sacramento is 

 Salmo gairdneri shasta, Jordan. 



X The trout of the Coast Range is Salmo gairdneri 

 irideus, Gibbons. 



From the Coast Range it is not far 

 to the sea, and those who go to the sea 

 must sometime come back to the moun- 

 tains, for all the salmon family cast 

 their eggs in the gravel of fresh water 

 brooks. In this way, they formed a 

 migrating habit, and ocean feeding in 

 trout means large size. The migrating 

 trout of all grades enter the rivers of 

 California, from Point Concepcion to 

 Puget Sound. These fishes are similar to 

 the Coast Range trout in most respects, 

 but reach a much greater size. Ten 

 pounds is not uncommon and they have 

 been known to run as high as thirty. 

 These sea-run fishes are known as steel- 

 heads or salmon trout, and are often 

 taken for salmon. They are trout 

 nevertheless, not salmon at all. The 

 name steelhead, being used for no other 

 fish, is well applied to them. Their 

 origin, if this story I am trying to tell 

 is true, is from the brook trout of the 

 Coast Range. These two have to- 

 gether gone northward, invading the 

 original territory of the cut-throat trout. 

 In the streams about the mouth of the 

 Columbia, all three, brook trout, cut- 

 throats and steelheads, can be found 

 together. They do not mix nor inter- 

 breed. Any one can tell them apart 

 and no one can doubt that they are dis- 

 tinct species. To find intermediate 

 forms we must follow the steelhead * 

 backward or the cut-throat forward. 



But the steelhead does not stop with 

 the Columbia. Its descendants have in- 

 vaded the Fraser river and have become 

 the great white trout of the Kamloops 

 and Kootenay lakes, the Stit-tse f of the 

 Indians. This trout does not differ much 

 from the steelhead, but its large scales, 

 silvery color and sleek aspect give it an 

 appearance from its cut-throat ancestry, 

 which lives with it in the same waters. 

 Different species the two are, beyond a 

 doubt ; yet they belong to the same 

 series. They stand at opposite ends of 

 a long chain that still has many links 

 and that has lost many more. For each 

 link in the great chain, there is a long 

 and an eventful history. 



* The steelhead trout is Salmo gairdneri, Richard- 

 son, named in 1836 for its discoverer, Dr. Gardiner, 

 an enthusiastic young naturalist, stationed at Fort 

 Vancouver, in the employ of the fur company. 



t The Stit-tse trout is Salmo gairdneri Kamloops, 

 Jordan. 



