AMERICAN FISHES. 
45 6 
use is made of it. Its flesh is pale, and its bones too firm for it to be used 
in canning, while old individuals taken in the canning season are usually 
spent and worthless. In the Sacramento it is not very common. 
Salmo irideus , is called the “ Rainbow Trout,” “ BrookTrout,” “Moun¬ 
tain Trout,” “ Speckled Trout,” “ Golden Trout,” and by various other 
names. It does not reach a weight of more than five or six pounds, so far 
as we know, and most of them, as taken, are fingerlings ranging from four 
inches to a foot in length. It is found in streams west of the Sierra 
Nevada, from near the Mexican line to Oregon, and is said to occur 
in the northern part of Lower California. The southernmost seen by 
Jordan were from San Luis Rey River. Few have been observed in 
salt water. It may probably run into the sea from streams in which the 
lower waters are clear. It feeds on worms, larvae, and the like. It is 
a fish of little gameness or activity, which has not often been brought 
into the markets of San Francisco, and at present has little economic im¬ 
portance, although of course a good table-fish. It has been rather exten¬ 
sively introduced into the waters of the Eastern United States, and has 
been reared artificially in large numbers by the U. S. Fish Commission on 
the McCloud river in California, and thence distributed eastward and 
across the Pacific. The growth of the species at Northville, Mich., Ver¬ 
ona, Mo., Wytheville, Va., Cold Spring, N. Y., and in Japan, is very 
gratifying. Specimens have been obtained from North Carolina. The 
South Side club at Oakdale, Long Island, recently sent to the National 
Museum a fine example taken in salt water. 
The Rio Grande Trout, Salmo spilurus , (Cope) is abundant in the 
headwaters of the Rio Grande, Rio Colorado, and their tributaries, being 
