102 CONTESTS BETWEEN SALMON. 



season, with the elongation of jaw, and the mouth closed ; 

 No. 3, also out of season, and with the elongation, hut with 

 the mouth opened to its full extent. No. 1 is an imaginary 

 portrait, but supposed to answer in regard to size to what 

 Nos. 2 and 3 would have been when in condition. Nos. 

 2 and 3 are actual portraits of the same fish, which weighed 

 twenty-five pounds four ounces, and was caught on the 

 14th of September. The elongation on the jaws of Nos. 

 2 and 3 may be judged of from the nostrils, which as well in 

 the minimum as the maximum state are accurately marked 

 in the drawing. 



In the breeding season the contests between the males are 

 incessant and desperate. Mr. Keiller repeatedly noticed an 

 immense salmon charge another with such thorough good- 

 will, as to throw him fairly out of the water. As it is, 

 their battles are bloody enough ; not only are fish observed 

 to be gashed in every direction probably by their side 

 teeth, for those in front, or on the tongue, cannot be 

 brought properly into play, owing to the hook but with 

 large pieces of flesh and skin actually hanging down their 

 sides. At the close of the season all the males are 

 covered with scars. Unless one has seen the fish at this 

 time, it is difficult to conceive his mutilated condition ; and 

 it appears certain, that were it not for the hook not more 

 than a single male salmon would leave a spawning-ground 

 alive. 



But it is the males alone who, at the termination of 

 the spawning season, are thus seamed with scars : 

 another evidence, were such wanting, that the injuries 

 have arisen from combats between themselves; for were 

 the wounds inflicted by Otters, as many imagine, the 



