PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 81 



NOTES OiV SAtiMOIVBD.B OF THE tPPEU COlLrMBIA. 

 By CAPT. CHARLES BENDIRE, U. S. A. 



[]SroTE. — The United States National Museum has lately received from 

 Captain Buendire a very fine series of fislies from the neighborhood of 

 Fort Walla Walla, by far the most valuable collection of fishes ever made 

 in the waters of the Upper Columbia. The series is especially valuable, 

 as it throws much light on the life history of the JBlue-back Salmon or 

 "Eed-fish" [Oncorhynchus nerM), and shows, apparently beyond a doubt, 

 what no one had before suspected, so far as I know, that the supposed 

 land-locked little red salmon {Oncorhynchus Icennerlyi) is nothing but the 

 young breeding male or grilse of the Oncorhynchus nerlca. Accompany- 

 ing the collection are many valuable field-notes on the different species. 

 Those relating to the Salmon and Trout are here extracted, each para- 

 graph being i^receded by my identification of the species to which the 

 remarks refer. — D. S. Jordan.] 



a. Oncorhynchus nerka (Walb.) Gill & Jor. 



(Adults ill ispriiig dress; the ordinary " Blue-Lack'' of the Lower Columbia.) 



Species of Salmon, 2 and ^, caught in the Columbia Elver near Wal- 

 lula, Wash., July 7, 1880. Local name. Silver Salmon. Some 250 miles 

 farther up the Snake River the same fish (at least I have every reason 

 to believe it to be the same fish) are called Blue-backs or Steel-backs. 

 This is undoubtedly the same species which during the spawning stage 

 is known as the Eed-fish found in the Wallowa Lake, Oregon, and Pay- 

 ette and Salmon Lakes, Idaho Territory. 



h. Oncorhynchus nerka. 



(Yonug male, exactly like the types of /SflZmo Icennerlyi Suckley.) 



A very interesting specimen. I take this to be a two-year old Eed- 

 fish, the only one of this size seen or caught. It was very deep for its size, 

 and resembles, as nearly as I can recollect, the type of Scdmo Icennerlyi 

 very much. It was caught on a hook by one of Mr. Messenger's men 

 September 1, 1880, and is the only one of the size ever observed by any 

 of them. Color bluish black above, silvery white on lower parts. 



c. Oncorhynchus nerka. 



(Youug, not yet showing hooked jaw^s. ) 

 Young Eed-fish. In some back steel-blue, in others back bluish and 

 greenish bronze ; sides lilac-colored, showing almost all the colors of a 

 rainbow ; bellies silvery white ; iris silvery with black centre. In life 

 one of the handsomest little fish I have ever seen. Some specimens 

 show spots of a bluish-black color like trout on the head and near the 

 tail and caudal fin, a few only along the whole back. Most of these 

 spots disappear shortly after death, but in some I noticed them some 

 Proc. Kat. Mus. 81 G June 2, 1881. 



