96 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



rivers. At this late period they are much emaciated, owiug to their 

 exhaustion from breeding- aud from months of abstinence, they being- 

 said not to eat after entering fresh water 5 and their flesh, when cooked, 

 is rank and ill-flavored. During- the month of April they suddenly dis- 

 appear, probably returning by the spring floods to salt water, although 

 the Indians say that but few return to the sea. The flesh of this fish, 

 when fresh from salt water, the individual being- fat and in good con- 

 dition, is of a very pale yellowish "salmon" color. This color soon 

 changes to a pinkish-yellow, and, when the fish is worn out, to ycllow- 

 ish-white. 



The nuiles of this species have the hooked snout while still in salt 

 water and in good condition. In this difference of the jaws in the sexes 

 they agree with the >S'. hamatus of Lapland, which, according to the 

 author of the "Lachesis Lapponica," has the hooking of the lower Jaw 

 confined to the male sex. (See quotation in Eich. F. B, A.) 



The female .shnvitz when fresh run has symmetrical Jaws. The snout 

 l)ecomes slightly decurved when they are much emaciated, and is sim- 

 ply owing to the absorption of the fatty cushions along- the iiitevmaxil- 

 laries, aud therefore more api)arent than real. 



The skoioltz runs in immense shoals up the rivers emptying into Puget 

 Sound. Fisheries have been established in certain localities, ami as 

 many as o,(U)0 fish taken in one haul of the seine. 



Since writing the report for the Pacific Eailroad survey, so frequently 

 alluded to in this monograph, I have been further convinced that Dr. 

 Gairduer, whose notes are (pioted by Sir John Eichardson, confounded 

 the Salmo protem and the present species, and recorded notes, part of 

 which a})ply to one and part to the other. Tlie flesh of this fish, although 

 inferior to *S'. qnutnat, S. f/airdiieri, and S. fninrafus, is far better than of 

 the other autumnal kinds. Being of a con\enient size, they are rather 

 preferred for packing in salt. 



After entering the Columbia the .sl-oicl tz ascemla the current of the 

 main river and its tributaries to points fullj- seven hundred miles by 

 water from the sea. 



The Indians say that many individuals return to the sea. According^! 

 to the natives at Fraser Eiver, the present fish after entering salt water 

 clianges color in a very uniform manner, the males turning red, the 

 females black. It, as Avell as S. can is, enters Chiloweyuck Lake. 



On the 4th of October, 1850, Creorge Gibbs, esif., obtained from the 

 Okanagon Eiver, Washington Territory, a female of this species, (No. 

 2007 Smith. Collect.,) which he says is the kind known to the Indians 

 of that region as the I'a-i^hoo, {Ja'-as-soo, or M-l-a-.wo, McDonald.) (See 

 chap, on Salmonidic, Cooper & Suckley, Nat. Hist. Washington Terri- 

 tory.) According to Mr. Gibbs, the length of his specimen was 27 

 inches; head, 5.75; lateral line, IS; distance from snout to ventrals, 

 13.50; to dorsal, lO.GO; to adipose, 18.75: to anal, 17.75; meat, red 5 

 egg'r^, orange; size of beaver, short. It had just arrived in the river. 



