11 -RESULTS OF EXPLORATIONS IN AVESTERN CANADA AND THE NORTH* 
WESTERN UNITED STATES. 
By carl H. EIGENMANN, 
Professor of Zoology, Jndiatia University. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Daring Augast and part of September, 1892, 1 m ade a series of collections of fishes 
between Winnipeg and Vancouver in Canada, and between Umatilla, Oregon, and 
Poplar, Montana, in the United States. Collections were made at 25 different places 
distributed as follows: 5 stations in the basin of the Red River of the Uorth, 1 in the 
basin of Lake Manitoba, 0 in the Saskatchewan basin, 7 in the Columbia basin, 4in the 
Eraser basin, and 2 in the Missouri basin. I thirs collected material for a comparison 
of the fish faunas of the streams llowing into Hudson Bay and into the Gulf of Mexico 
on the Atlantic slope, and into Puget Sound and into th'e Columbia on the Pacific 
slope. The conclusions based on my observations are, of course, merely tentative, for 
many other species will iirobably be found in the streams examined. 
Uiueteeu stops Avere made in Canada along a line which runs nearly west from 
Winnipeg, /. e., along the Canadian Pacific railway. On the Atlantic slope I collected 
from an elevation of 700 feet at Winnipeg to an elevation of 4,500 feet at Banff, in the 
Rocky Mountains I^ark, and on the Pacific slope from an elevation of 4,050 feet at 
Field to 300 feet at Umatilla on tlie Columbia system, and from 1,900 feet at Griffin 
Lake to tide water at Mission in the Fraser system. 
The streams on the Atlantic side in Canada belong to one river system, since the 
Red River and the Saskatchewan are united in Lake Winnipeg and there is a direct 
communication between the Qu’Appelle River and tlie Saskatchewan.* I was informed 
that a similar relation exists between the headwaters of the Saskatchewan and the 
Milk River, thus connecting the Winnipeg system Avith the Mississippi system. The 
connection is said to lie in a marshy meadow to the west of the Cypress Hills; and 
should this be a fact, the Mississippi, Saskatchewan, and Columbia t Avould form one 
gigantic Avater system similar to that formed by the Orinoco, Amazon, and La Plata, 
Avith the difterence that the Pacific slope is included in the Forth American system. 
The great similarity of the fauna of the Saskatchewan to that of the Missouri lends 
H. Youle Hind, Canadian Red River and Assini))oine and Saskatcliewan Expedition (London, 
1860), p. 355: “We soon found a pond from which Ave observed Avater floAving to the Saskatchewan 
and the Assiniboiue. The pond is fed by a number of springs and small streams, a foot or tAvo broad, 
issuing from the sand hills at right angles to the A-alley.” 
t For a full and interesting account of the connection between the headwaters of Snake River 
and the Yellowstone, see EA^ermann, Report of the Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries respecting the 
establishment of fish-cultural stations in the Rooky Mountain region and Gulf States, p. 22, 1892. 
101 
