THE SALMON. 19 



or more comely, or more edible fish than he was in the days 

 of Pliny and Oppian, both of whom tested his qualities and 

 sung his praises away back in the second century, as well as 

 others in the years before them. And his geographical range 

 is as wide-spread as his fame. It extends around the entire 

 Northern Hemisphere, from latitude 40 degrees up into the 

 extreme Arctic region, belting the continents of Europe, 

 Asia, and America, in all three of which it is indigenous and 

 equally abundant. On the Pacific Ocean the belt dips down 

 to the 30th parallel, and takes in the waters of Southern 

 California on its eastern shore, and those of China and Japan 

 on the west; but in all Atlantic waters the extreme southern 

 limit is about 40 degrees. In Europe there is but one species 

 (Sa/ar), but in America there are several. These are divided 

 specifically, as well as geographically, into two characteristic 

 classes, of which one is known as Salmo (the leaper), and 

 the other as Oncorhynchus (hook-nose). Of the latter there 

 are five recognized species, which are enumerated as follows 

 in Jordan & Gilbert's "Synopsis of Fishes" (1883): 



SPECIES. RANGE. 



Dog Salmon (O. ketn) Sacramento River to Bering Strait. 



Humpback (O. gorbuscha\ ' ' to Kotzebue Sound. 



Silver Salmon [O. kisutch) " " " < 



Blueback (O. nerka) Columbia River " ' 



Quinnat (O. chonicha) Monterey to the Arctic Ocean. 



The Quinnat, or King Salmon, is the most comely and valu- 

 able of the lot, and may justly be called the typical representa- 

 tive of the Oncorhynchus branch of the family. He is a much 

 heavier fish than his congener of the Atlantic, and in the rivers 

 of Western Alaska will average fifty pounds, individuals often 

 running up to seventy and one hundred pounds in weight. 

 His range is from Lower California up to Bach's Great Fish 

 River, in the Arctic Ocean. Immense numbers ascend the 

 large rivers of the Northern Pacific coast and Bering Sea in 

 spring and summer, moving up a thousand miles and more, as 

 in the Yukon, and crowding the shorter rivers when the tide is 



