SALMON. , 55 



In every stream and rill, where they can by 

 any possibility work a passage, you find these 

 salmon; they remain until January and Febru- 

 ary in the succeeding year, becoming fearfully 

 emaciated and worn, from a long and tedious 

 abstinence ; for I believe these salmon feed 

 sparely, if at all, after leaving the sea. The 

 fish in January is of a pale dirty-yellow colour ; 

 the sides, showing a bright purplish stripe 

 (sure sign of waning vitality), are flattened 

 and compressed ; the back is straight until 

 near its posterior third, when it dips down sud- 

 denly, and rises again at the tail just as if you 

 had cut a notch out. The belly, instead of being 

 silvery-white, is rusty yellow, and hangs pen- 

 dulous and flabby ; the eye is dull and sunken. 



But the most curious change is in the head 

 of the male fish : the nose becomes enormously 

 elongated, and hooks down like a gaff- hook 

 over the under-jaw, and the under-jaw bends 

 up at the point into a kind of spike that fits 

 into a regular sheath or hole in the upper jaw, 

 just where it begins bending into the hook- 

 like point ; the teeth become regular fangs, stick- 

 ing out round the jaws at irregular distances, 

 and having a yellow bonelike appearance. I 

 have often seen the teeth more than half an inch 



