THE SALMON FAMILY. 211 



are steadily doing their work of destruction, and unless more 

 stringent laws are enacted for the protection of Salmon, or 

 those already passed are more rigidly enforced, the Salmon- 

 rivers of the British provinces will, in the course of a few 

 years, become as barren as our own. 



Scientific Description. — The followT-ng is a description 

 of a fresh-run female Salmon, of sixteen pounds, taken in the 

 Nipissiguit last summer : — 



Length to the fork of the caudal fin, thirty-three inches, 

 girth eighteen, breadth seven, caudal when expanded, nine. 

 Form, an elongated ellipse, its greatest breadth in front of 

 the dorsal fin. Color ; back, of greenish blue ; sides, light 

 silvery gray ; belly, white ; there are angular but irregular 

 markings, sometimes like the letter X, dispersed along the 

 back and above the lateral line about an inch or two apart. 

 The brilliancy of a fresh-run fish is unsurpassed, its sides 

 gleaming in the sunlight like burnished silver, as it leaps 

 above the water. The head is a dark steel-blue above, 

 shading lighter below with pearly reflections, and entirely 

 white beneath ; it has two or three dark spots on the opercle. 



There is a great difference in the proportions of a male 

 and female Salmon, which is more perceptible as the summer 

 advances ; the head of a male fish is nearly one-fourth of its 

 length, exclusive of the caudal, that of a female is not much 

 more than a fifth, while the head of a female Grilse is not 

 more than a sixth. The lateral line is straight, as in all the 

 Salmonoids. There are twelve branchial rays. The pectoral 

 fin, which has thirteen rays, is a pearly gray, with the first 

 ray black ; ventrals grayish white, with nine rays ; anal 

 roseate white, with nine rays ; dorsal dark pearly blue, with 

 twelve rays ; the caudal is slightly lunate, and has eighteen, 

 exclusive of the rudimentary rays. 



There is a cartilaginous projection on the tip of the lower 



