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890 Robert Ruah Miller kept by F. M. Chamberlain (see p. 373) have shown how the range of S. gilae has dwindled since around the turn of the century (Miller, 1950, pp. 18-20,27-29). Additional information on its former distribu- tion and abundance in Oak Creek, south of Flagstaff, was obtained from Stanley Sykes in Flagstaff on May 25,1950. He came to Arizona from Kansas in 1886, and first went down into Oak Creek Canyon in 1888, by a very rough trail. Native trout, as long as 16 inches, were • - then abundant as far downstream as the small falls (now just above the first highway crossing north of Sedona), and were easily caught. Before 1900, however, Sykes observed that introduced rainbow trout .? had already started to displace the native trout through competition ' and hybridization (see also Miller, 1950, p. 28), and it is doubtful whether a remnant of the pure stock still persists anywhere in the Verde River drainage. Dan A. Purtyman, Superintendent of the Page Springs Fish Hatchery on Oak Creek, testified that he helped stock the first rainbow trout in the creek when he was a boy (shortly before 1900). The last native trout he saw in Oak Creek was in 1915 or thereabouts; these trout were yellowish and spotted and lacked the "rainbow" band and the "cutthroat" mark. In his letter of June 30, 1939, to Carl L. Hubbs, E. C. Becker, of Springerville, related information obtained from his father, Gustav Becker, who came to Arizona in 1876. This testimony is concerned _ with the native trout--"yellow bellies," as they were called-of the White Mountains, in both the headwaters of the Little Colorado and Salt rivers, and with the early history of trout stocking in the Little Colorado River. Such documentation is difficult to find in print and much valuable information has disappeared with the passing of old- timers. No exotic species were planted between 1876 and 1917; for j the streams were apparently always stocked to capacity from natural reproduction. From 1898 to 1916, E. C. Becker stated that the native trout "were so plentiful that it was no trick for a boy to catch 100 in a few hours or 200 in a full afternoon." Because of ancient taboos against eating fish, the trout wem not eaten by the Apache Indians and so survived until the white man began to exploit them. In 1917, brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) were brought from Holbrook and I planted above Greer. A short time later, the rainbow trout (Salmo gairdneri) was introduced. When the South Fork Hatchery was built 10 miles from Springerville, in 1921, rainbow and "Wyoming natives" (S. clarki lewisi,) "were distributed to practically all the accessible G