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TROUT FISHING IN THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 519 
taken and examined, I presume, forty specimens. They are 
the same bird, but not of the same age. The black is the 
OT A The differences in markings between them are 
not as great as in many birds, as, for example, in the Bald 
Eagle, the Golden Eye, Sheldrake, etc. I have taken them 
from those with the lightest markings to jet black, with all 
the intermediate varieties in color. So gradually do they 
come more and more black till jet black is reached, that I 
will defy any one to draw the separating line. It would be 
as difficult as to tell when the ‘pig becomes a hog.’”* | 
The late Mr. Lucius Clarke, of Northampton, I have been 
informed, had a similar series, and that from an examination 
of a large number of specimens he had arrived at the same 
conclusion. I have not yet had an opportunity of comparing 
à very large number, but from a study of those I have seen, 
and of the accounts given by authors, I believe the view 
taken by Dr. Wood and Mr. Clark to be the correct one. 

TROUT FISHING IN THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 
BY HON. J. D. CATON. 

Br far the hardest day's work the tourist has in "doing" the 
wonderful valley is the visit to the Vernal and the Nevada 
falls, where the Merced River makes a clear leap of three 
hundred feet over the first, and seven hundred feet over the 
Second. Our guide, Mr. Cunningham, assured me that not 
a fish of any kind is found in the river, or any of its tribu- 
taries above the first or lower fall. Below these falls several 
varieties occur, the most interesting and the most abundant 
of which is the Speckled Trout (Salmo iridea Gib.). H 
differs materially from its cousin, the Speckled Trout of the 
Eastern States (Salmo fontinalis), especially in habit and 
*In epist. Sept. 5, 1864. 
