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 
