48 REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF FISH COMMISSIONERS. 



River, at the time of the Dolly Varden craze, noticing the gaudy colors 

 of this California charr, proposed to call it the Dolly Varden trout. 

 This name coming to the ears of Professor Baird, then United States Fish 

 Commissioner, pleased his fancy, and he directed me, who then had the 

 classification of the trout in the Smithsonian Institution in hand, to con- 

 tinue for this species the common name of Dolly Varden trout, and so, 

 in the books at least, Dolly Varden trout it is to this day. 



Turning back to the Quinnat salmon, or the salmon of the Pacific 

 Coast, we often find persons puzzled to distinguish its 3'oung from the 

 various forms of trout. Any person who can count, and will take the 

 trouble to learn which of the fins is the anal fin — the one on the lower 

 side just behind the vent — can distinguish the young Quinnat salmon 

 from any form of trout. All the so-called salmon of the Pacific Coast, 

 all the species of Oncorhynchus, have an increased number of rays in 

 the anal fin, from fourteen to twenty, while all forms of trout in what- 

 ever country, all the charrs and the Atlantic Coast salmon, have in this 

 fin but nine or ten rays. This is a matter of some importance, in view 

 of the fact that the fishery laws of this State discriminate between trout 

 and salmon, permitting the catching of the one, when to take the other 

 is forbidden. 



The existence of large salmon-like fislies in the Pacific has long been 

 known. The dift'erent species were recognized about one hundred and 

 forty years ago by that most exact of early observers, Steller, who 

 described and distinguished them with perfect accuracy, under their 

 Russian vernacular names. These Russian names were, in 1792, adopted 

 by Walbaum as specific names, in giving to these animals scientific 

 names. Since Steller's time, writers of all degrees of incompetence, and 

 writers with scanty material or with no material at all, have done their 

 worst to confuse our knowledge of these salmon, until it became evident 

 that no exact knowledge of any of the species remained. In the current 

 system of a few years ago,* the breeding males of the five species known 

 to Steller constituted a separate genus of many species {Oncorhynchus, 

 Suckley); the females w-ere placed in the genus Sahno, and the young 

 formed still another species of a third genus, called Fario, supposed to 

 be a genus of trout. The young breeding males (grilse) of one of the 

 species {Oncorhynchus nerka) made still a fourth genus, designated as 

 Hypsifario. Not one of the writers on these fishes of thirty years ago 

 knew a single species definitely, at sight, or used knowingly in their 

 descriptions a single character by which species are really distinguished. 

 Not less than thirty-five nominal species of Oncorhynchus have already 

 been described from the North Pacific, although, so far as is now known, 

 only the five originally noticed by Steller really exist. The descriptive 

 literature of the Pacific salmon is among the very worst extant in 

 science. This is not, however, altogether the fault of the authors, but 

 it is in great part due to the extraordinary variability in appearance of 

 the difierent species of salmon. These variations are, as will be seen, 

 due to several difierent causes, notably to differences in surroundings, 

 in sex, and in age, and in conditions connected with the process of re- 

 production. The writer and his associate, Prof. Charles H. Gilbert, 

 have had, under the auspices of the United States Fish Commission, 

 better opportunities to study the different species of Oncorhynchus than 

 had fallen to the lot of any previous ichthyologists. Entirely similar 



* See report IT. S. Pacific R. R. Explorations, 1858. 



