FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 127 



Color. — While in the sea the back and tail of the humpback are bottle green 

 with poorly defined black spots. These spots are particularly conspicuous on the 

 tail, where they are oval in outline and as much as a third of an inch across the long 

 diameter. These large oval spots on the tail form one of the most distinctive marks 

 whereby the humpback can be distinguished from all other salmon. Its sides and 

 belly are silvery, with a faint pinkish tinge. Young humpbacks are unique among 

 salmon in being of practically adult coloration without "smolt" marks (p. 133). 



Size. — The humpback is the smallest of the Pacific salmons and is much smaller 

 than the Atlantic salmon, adults averaging only about b}4, pounds in weight and 

 20 to 25 inches in length, males running up to about 11 and females to 73^ pounds. 



General range. — Pacific coast and rivers of North America and Asia, from 

 Oregon northward on the American side. This is the most abundant salmon in 

 Alaska. It runs up fresh rivers to spawn, which it does but once and then dies. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine.— The history of the introduction of this 

 west coast salmon to New England waters is as follows: 



In the autumn of 1913 a large consignment of humpback eggs was shipped to 

 the Craig Brook and Green Lake (Me.) hatcheries, and the approximately 7,000,000 

 fry and fingerlings hatched therefrom were distributed in the Penobscot, Andro- 

 scoggin, Damariscotta, Dennys, Pleasant, Union, Medomak, Georges, and St. Croix 

 Rivers. A year later some 5,000,000 more young fish were liberated. A third 

 plant was made in 1915, a fourth of 6,235,808 fingerlings in 1916, and a fifth of 

 about 1,000,000 in the Dennys and Pembroke Rivers in 1917.^* The results of this 

 attempt at acclimatization were first seen in the summer and fall of 1915 when 

 fishermen along the Maine coast reported large numbers of mature humpbacks. 

 Furthermore, humpbacks ran in the Dennys River (where many were caught) from 

 August 15 until September 24, and some probably spawned there, for the bodies of 

 spent fish were seen drifting downstream. Himipbacks again entered the rivers of 

 eastern Maine, particularly the Pembroke and Dennys, with a few reported from the 

 Penobscot, St. Georges, Medomak, and St. Croix, during August, September, and 

 October, 1917, the result of the plant of 1915. In the Dennys alone at least 

 2,000 matm-e fish were seen and many averaging about 5 pounds and one as heavy 

 as 10 pounds 9 ounces were caught. Definite information for 1918 is lacking, 

 but even larger numbers entered the Dennys and Pembroke Rivers in the autumn 

 of 1919 than in 1917, with smaller runs in the Penobscot, Machias, St. Croix, and 

 Medomak Rivers, and humpbacks were caught in weirs in Passamaquoddy and 

 Cobscook Bays near the mouth of the Bay of Fundy. Enough spawned in the 

 Dennys and Pembroke Rivers that year for the fish-culturists of the Bureau of 

 Fisheries to artifically fertilize half a million eggs. 



In 1920,'^ too, adult fish wei-e taken in the weirs in Penobscot Bay, and some 

 time during the summer of 1921 one fish was caught in a weir as far from its native 

 river as LanesviUe, Mass. (near Cape Ann), whence it was forwarded to the Massa- 

 chusetts commissioners as reported by C. E. Grant, of Gloucester. 



" More detailed accounts of the successive plantings will bo found in the annual reports of the Commissioner of Fisheries 

 for the years 1914 to 1920. 



" Reported catch, Washington County, Me., 1920, 310 pounds. 



102274— 25 1 9 



