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Changing Fish Fauna of the Southwest 389 <br />Clara to its upper part and has, at times, been very difficult to find <br />there. On the other hand it was "abundant everywhere" in 1912-13 <br />in the then flowing streams of the Los Angeles Plain, just to the south <br />(Culver and Hubbs, 1917). It still occurred in the Los Angeles River <br />as late as 1929 (USNM 94343), but disappeared there within the next <br />decade; it was probably during this same period that it vanished from <br />the Santa Ana River, for the last record there of which I am aware <br />is for 1923 (CAS 18558), and none was found during careful investiga- <br />tion along the river in the late 1930'x. By 1939, this stickleback oc- <br />curred on the Los Angeles Plain -apparently only in the San Gabriel <br />River system near Whittier, where it was last taken in April 1942 <br />(UMMZ 139009). <br />Changing water conditions, especially the disappearance of former <br />perennial flows (see p. 371), and competition with introduced fishes <br />have evidently brought about the extinction or near extinction of this <br />fish over that part of its range where it once was most abundant. <br />Gambusia affinis affanis has very likely been the principal exotic re- <br />sponsible for the disappearance of the stickleback; the mosquitofish <br />was introduced and widely established in California in 1922 (Dill, <br />1944, p. 162), and was common in the Los Angeles area by 1930. <br />Whether G. a. williamsoni still survives on the Los Angeles Plain is <br />questionable; it was still present in the upper part of Santa Clara <br />River in 1951 and probably persists also in the Mohave River at <br />Victorville (where it has been introduced, and was last collected in <br />1955). <br />DEPLETION AND SPEC= REPLACEMENT <br />The Arizona native trout, which I have tentatively referred to <br />Salmo gilae (Miller, 1950, p. 34), once inhabited suitable tributaries <br />of Salt River, Gila River (in New Mexico as well as Arizona), and <br />the headwaters of the Little Colorado River (Fig. 1). It is the only <br />trout indigenous to Arizona.s Testimony from old-timers and records <br />I have examined specimens of the trout recorded by Jordan and Evermann <br />(1896, p. 496) as Salmo clarki pleuriticus fmin the Little Colorado River and <br />identify them as the Arizona native trout. The occurrence of the latter in the <br />Little Colorado drainage is the result of introduction by way of an 1897 canal <br />diversion (from a tributary of White River), or by transplanting activities of <br />early stockmen, or both (letter from Jack E. Hemphill, November 10, 1960). <br />This fish is well portrayed in color on the cover of the pamphlet by Mulch and <br />• Gamble (1954). <br /> <br />0