92 REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF FISH COMMISSIONERS. 



are frozen and sent to the Eastern markets. The Dog salmon, as the 

 season goes on, becomes irregularly cross-barred with blackish streaks, 

 by which marks it can be generally tuld from the others. 



The Humpback salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) has much smaller 

 scales than the others. It reaches a smaller size (three to six pounds), 

 and it may be known by the large black spots on its back and tail. It 

 is rarely seen in California, but from Puget Sound northward it is 

 found in unnumbered myriads about the mouth of every stream. It 

 spawns near the sea and in any kind of fresh water. Its flesh is 

 wholesome, but without fine flavor, and it is of a faded brownish color, 

 instead of salmon red. It is largely canned under the name of Pink 

 salmon. It sells for about half the price of the Eed salmon, and is 

 worth still less. Its value, at the best, is little more than the cost of 

 canning, though, as already stated, as food it is quite wholesome, and 

 doubtless as nourishing as the species which taste better and look 

 better. Salted salmon bellies, as prepared in Alaska, are mostly from 

 the Humpback salmon, the body of the fish being thrown away. In 

 actual food value, the five species stand in this order : Chinook, Silver, 

 Red, Humpback, Dog. In economic importance : Red, Chinook, Hump- 

 back, Silver, Dog. In the United States, outside of Alaska, the Chinook 

 far outvalues all the rest. But in Alaska and British Columbia, the 

 Red salmon greatly predominates. In Japan, only the Dog salmon and 

 Silver salmon are commonly seen, the first far in excess of the second. 



As a food fish, the Chinook salmon is finer and larger than the salmon 

 of Europe. The latter, however, ranks with our Steelhead trout, as 

 superior to the Red salmon and perhaps to the Silver salmon also. 



All the salmon take the hook in the sea, and are fairly gamy. In 

 the rivers, they will sometimes snap at a hook, baited or not, but never 

 for the purpose of feeding. They strike at it as though it were an 

 annoyance, but they could not swallow it. as after the spawning season 

 the stomach shrinks away till it is little larger than a cherry. 



With the Chinook salmon is seen the greatest triumph of fish hatch- 

 ing. Now that the spawning grounds of the species in the Sacramento 

 have been nearly all destroyed, the fish hatcheries turn millions of 

 young fish into the rivers, after having led them past the period of 

 greatest destruction from their enemies. But more salmon run in the 

 Sacramento now than in the days when there was no fishing and no 

 mining. 



With the same treatment, the over-fishing of the Columbia, the Fraser 

 and the streams of Alaska, could be met, and one of the best forms of 

 food would continue to be one of the cheapest. 



