w 
December, 1922 
541 
AN ASSEMBLAGEOFFOSSILS 
W HILE on a fishing trip this summer, 
I was attracted by a clear pool in 
a stream and took a plunge. While 
wading out my foot was lacerated by 
some sharp object which I discovered to 
be the shark tooth, No. 5 in the accom- 
panying illustration. Having my curi- 
osity aroused, I started hunting along the 
bed of the stream and soon found the 
collection illustrated. I have had the 
specimens identified, which indentifica- 
tion I give herewith. Numbers 1, 2, 3., 
4, 5, 6, 19, 26 and 29 teeth of a pre- 
historic shark-like fish. Numbers 7, 10, 
11, 16, 18, 22, 23, 27, 28 and 30, the same, 
different species. Numbers 12, 13, 14, 
A mastodon’s tooth 
15, a third species. 9, tooth of prehis- 
toric alligator-like reptile ; 20, piece from 
tail of extinct sting ray; 21, tooth of ex- 
tinct beaver; 24, milk tooth of the three- 
toed horse, from which our modern 
horses have descended ; 25, same as 20 ; 
32, unidentified vertebra; 8 and 31, stone 
formations. The prize of the day, how- 
ever, was the mastodon tooth illustrated 
in the above photograph. This tooth is 
4j/2 inches long. 
The sharks and rays are salt-water 
fishes. The mastodon a land mammal, 
the ’gator a fresh-water reptile. How 
did all these fossil remains find their way 
into the bed of a fresh-water, spring-fed 
stream in the center of the state? 
Herbert C. McKay, Florida. 
Mastodon has been found in several 
localities in Florida, also three-toed 
horses. Beaver I do not recall, hut it is 
recorded from South Carolina. Shark 
teeth are common, and I have seen 
crocodile and sting ray from various 
localities in the state. 
The association of land, fresh-water 
and marine animals is paralleled in the 
fossil fauna from the phosphate beds 
near Charleston, S. C. It is explained 
as due to their being washed out from 
different formations, some fresh-water, 
others marine, not of the same age. In 
the Charleston phosphates the land ani- 
mals are from a Pleistocene formation, 
the marine animals from one or more 
tertiary formations. They have been 
dredged up from the bottom of the river, 
all apparently mixed together. 
W. D. Matthew. 
THE TROUT OF CALIFORNIA 
By Dr. Barton Warren Evermann 
"^HERE are in California many more 
or less enthusiastic followers of 
good old Isaak Walton, who more than 
240 years ago wrote “The Compleat 
Angler, or The Contemplative Man’s 
Recreation; being a Discourse of Fish 
and Fishing not unworthy the perusal 
of most Anglers,’’ a most delightful book 
which should be in the library of every 
one who thinks himself an angler. And, 
according to the State Game and Fish 
Commission, there are 150,000 of them 
in California ; at any rate, that is the 
number of anglers’ licenses bought and 
paid for in California last year. 
All of which goes to show that the 
number of our people who enjoy “wet- 
ting a line’’ in lake and stream, and who 
hie themselves at least once a year to 
the mountains in quest of the festive and 
ofttimes elusive trout constitute no small 
army of hopeful beings. 
They are out for trout or other mem- 
bers of the Salmon family — the Salmon- 
id^ — the most important family of fishes 
in all the world; a family of more than 
a hundred different species and kinds. 
In it are found all the various kinds of 
salmon, trout, charr, whitefish, lake her- 
ring, and that strange fish of the rivers 
and lakes of the far north, the inconnu. 
This family of fishes is restricted in its 
distribution to northern waters. No 
species is found south of the Equator, 
and only one or two as far south as the 
thirtieth parallel. One occurs in the San 
Pedro Martir Mountains of Lower Cali- 
fornia, one well down in the mountain 
streams of Chihuahua, and a third, the 
Eastern Brook Trout, southward in the 
Alleghenies to northern Georgia. North- 
ward in America, Europe and Asia, 
various species extend as far as fresh- 
water streams and lakes are found. 
One of the motives uppermost in the 
minds of the men who founded 
Forest and Stream fifty years ago 
was that the magazine should culti- 
vate a refined taste for natural ob- 
jects and this department has come 
down through the years steadfastly 
holding to that precedent. 
Most of the species are strictly fresh- 
water forms, spending all their lives in 
streams or lakes. Among these are all 
the whitefishes and lake herrings, and 
most of the trout and , charrs. Others, 
such as the salmons, and some of the 
charrs and trouts, are anadromous ; that 
is, they spend most of their lives in the 
sea where they grow rapidly, and come 
into freshwater only at spawning time 
to deposit their eggs. 
Some of the species, as the Eastern 
Brook Trout, the Atlantic Salmon, and 
the five species of Pacific Salmon, spawn 
in the fall of the year on a falling tem- 
perature ; that is, when the water is be- 
(Continued on page 538) 
A remarkable assemblage of fossils found in one place 
