THE ATLANTIC SALMON. 



DESCEIPTION OF THE FISH. 



The body of the Atlantic salmon {Salmo solar) is moderately elongate 

 and but little compressed; the greatest depth is about one-fourth the 

 total length without the caudal fin. The length of the head is about 

 equal to the body depth. The mouth is of moderate size, the maxillary 

 reaching just past the eye, its length contained 2^ or 3 times in the 

 head. The scales are comparatively large, becoming embedded in adult 

 males; the number in the lateral line is about 120, with 23 above and 

 21 below that line. The dorsal fin has 11 rays and the anal 9 rays. The 

 pyloric cceca number about 65. 



The color, like the form, varies with sex, age, food, and condition. 

 The adult is brownish above and silvery on the sides, with numerous 

 small black spots, often x or xx shaped, on the head, body, and fins, 

 and with red patches along the sides in the male. Young salmon (parrs) 

 have about 11 dusky crossbars, besides black and red spots. 



RANGE. 



The salmon native to the rivers of the northeastern United States is 

 specifically identical with the salmon of Europe and all the affluents of 

 the Xorth Atlantic. Its original natural range in America appears to 

 have been from Labrador or Hudson Bay on the north to the vicinity of 

 New York on the south. Within these limits, at the proper season of the 

 year, it ascended, for the purpose of reproduction, nearly every river 

 except those that did not aftbrd the requisite facilities for depositing 

 8i)awn or were inaccessible by reason of impassable falls near their 

 mouths. 



In American rivers frequented by Atlantic salmon they were found 

 successively in all parts from the mouth up^ ard, their migrations extend- 

 iiig nearly to the headwaters of all the branches so far as they were 

 accessible and adai)ted to their necessities. The one exception is the 

 river St. Lawrence, where it seems probable, from such evidence as is 

 available, that few if any salmon entering the river from the sea ever 

 ascended as far as Lake Ontario, and that the salmon inhabiting that lake 

 and its tributaries have always, as a rule, made the lake their sea and 

 the limit of their downward migrations. Within or partly within the 

 limits of the United States there can be enumerated twenty-eight rivers 

 that were beyond doubt naturally frequented by salmon, beginning wim 



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