104 FISHES OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



ated just beneath the lower jaw, and the whole interior portion 

 of the lower jaw, including the teeth and far back of them, 

 was colored with a deep black pigment. 



Family IV. 

 SALMONIDES. 



Salmo. Lin. 



Generic characters. Head smooth^ covered with scales ; hoo 

 dorsal jins^ the first supported by rays, the second fl,eshy, loith- 

 oiit rays ; teeth on the vomer, both palatine bones, and all the 

 maxillary bones ; brancldostegous rays varying in number^ 

 generally from ten to twelve, but sometimes unequal on the two 

 sides of the head of the same fish. 



S. salar. Lin. The Salmon. 



Pennant's British Zoology, vol. iv. 249 et fig. 

 Mc Murtrie's Ciiv. vol. ii. 222. 

 Yarrell's British Fishes, vol. ii. p. 1. fig. 



The building of dams and manufacturing establishments, by 

 preventing the fishes from going up the rivers to deposit their 

 spawn, has almost entirely annihilated this species in our State. 

 Forty-five years since, it was very abundant in the Merrimac 

 river, so much so that nine individuals have been taken in an 

 afternoon by one person with a dip net ; and the usual price 

 was eight cents per pound. About seventeen years since, two 

 wagons, each bringing from 30 to 40 fine salmon from the 

 Merrimac river, supplied the Boston market every week dur- 

 ing the season of the fish. Now the few specimens taken are 

 looked upon as rarities,- and our market is supplied by the fish- 

 ery of the Kennebec. The average weights of the Merrimac 

 salmon are from 9 to 12, and from 16 to 22 pounds. The 

 largest weigh from 30 to 40 pounds. They have been caught 

 during every month in the year. The greatest run of salmon, 



