Book Reviews. 



63 



Vol. I, p. 525, not 523 as per index) may also be responsible for 

 some of the stories. 



But the California angler, among all this wealth of informa- 

 tion set forth with such charming clarity, instinctively turns to 

 the two chapters (in Vol. II) on the Salmonid(2. Under the sub- 

 heading "The Trout of Western America" the author presents a 

 masterly discussion of these living arrows of the white water. 

 It is a long list of species that answers to his roll-call. "In the 

 western part of America are found more than a score of forms 

 of trout of the genus Salmo, all closely related and difficult to 

 distinguish." Dr. Jordan distributes the various species among 

 three series, the cut-throat trout, the rainbow trout, and the steel- 

 head series. He deems it probable that the American trout orig- 

 inated in Asia, extended its range to southeast Alaska, and thence 

 spread southward. If it is true that the progenitors of a part or 

 all of the aboriginal population of North America came across 

 Bering Straits, or by way of the Aleutian Islands, we would 

 have here an interesting parallel of human to piscine migration. 

 Sierra Club members will be interested to learn that the small- 

 scaled King's and Kern River trout flourish under the name 

 Salmo irideus gilberti. This beautiful form of trout therefore 

 is linked with the name of Professor Charles H. Gilbert, of Stan- 

 ford University, the lifelong associate of the author in the study 

 of ichthyology. During the Club Outing of 1903 the journey to 

 Mt. Whitney was made especially memorable by the famous 

 golden trout of Volcano Creek. President Jordan gives this 

 description of them in his work (Vol. II, p. 99) : "In the head- 

 waters of the Kern, in a stream called Volcano Creek or Whit- 

 ney Creek, the waterfall sometimes called Agua-Bonita shuts off 

 the movements of the trout. Above this fall is a dwarf form 

 with bright golden fins, and the scales scarcely imbricated. This 

 is the golden trout of Mount Whitney, Salmo irideus agua-bonita. 

 It will possibly be found to change back to the original type if 

 propagated in different waters." 



In the preceding chapter the reviewer has called attention to 

 only a few items of general and immediate interest. Many large 

 questions raised in these chapters must go unmentioned for want 

 of space. Among them is the question which concerns the prob- 

 able evolution of fishes from some unknown, perhaps lamprey- 

 like, ancestor. There was one class of primitive fishes known as 

 Crossopterygians, of which but two families of few species sur- 

 vive — all of them apparently in Africa. They united within 

 themselves traits of the shark, lung-fish, and ganoid. Our author 

 is of the opinion that from these "Crossopterygians, or their 

 ancestors or descendants by the specialization of the lung and 

 limbs, the land animals, at first amphibians, after these reptiles, 



