1 62 The Pacific Salmons 



At the spawning period the back and sides become 

 red, and the male develops an extravagantly hooked 

 lower jaw. 



The blue-back ranges from northern California 

 to the far north, ascending those streams which 

 rise in cold, snow-fed lakes, and spawning in the 

 affluents of lakes. 



It is one of the smallest of the salmon, the 

 maximum weight being only fifteen pounds; 

 specimens weighing over eight pounds are rare, 

 and the average is under five pounds. An 

 interesting form of the blue-back, apparently 

 landlocked in lakes in Idaho, Washington, and 

 elsewhere, weighs only half a pound when 

 mature, and is known as the little redfish. 



The Humpback Salmon 



The humpback salmon {Oncorhynchus gorbu- 

 schd) is the smallest member of the genus ; it 

 rarely reaches a weight of ten pounds, and aver- 

 ages only five pounds. The principal specific 

 characters are the very small scales, two hundred 

 and ten to two hundred and forty in the longi- 

 tudinal series; slender pyloric c^eca, about one 

 hundred and eighty in number; twenty-eight short 

 gill-rakers, fifteen rays in the anal fin, eleven or 



