BIHANU TILL K. SV. VET.-AKAD. HANDL. BAND 26. AFD. IV. M:0 8. 25 



Salmo salar caspius (Kessler). 



I had no opportunity to bring home with me any Cas- 

 pian salmon, and the measurements on which the above table 

 is based were not procured under favourable circnmstances. 

 They were taken outside an ice cellar and I bad no instru- 

 ments for exact measuring, only tbe measuring tape. Tbe 

 great agreement between tbe numbers cause, however, tbat 

 I dåre to put some conödence in tbeir exaetness. I tbink 

 accordingly tbat tbey can be used for a comparison between 

 the Caspian and Scandinavian salmon. In making sucb a 

 comparison tbe small head of the Caspian salmon is strikingly 

 noticeable. It resembles in this respect the salar form, the 

 length of the triitta head exceeding 20 % of the length.^ In 

 the same way caspius resembles salar with regard to the 

 height of the caudal peduncle which in trutta exceeds 8 % of 

 the total length. The snout of caspius seems to be even 

 shorter than tbat of salar. The percentages expressing the 

 distance of the dorsal fin from the snout is, on the contrary, 

 rather high as in trutta. 



The colour and the number of spöts made the general 

 appearance more like a large seatrout than a salmon. It is, 

 however, apparent tbat in the Caspian Sea bas been developed 

 a form of salmon tbat in several respects is a parallelism to 

 our salar. — During the summer the Caspian salmon is not 

 much observed and only accidentally caught in the seine to- 



' Conf. F. Å. Smitt: Kritisk förteckning öfver de i Riksmuseum befint- 

 liga Salmonider, K. Sv. Vet. Akad. Handl. Bd. 21. 



