The Silver Salmon 



than the body, and with few spots; back, dorsal fin and tail 

 usually profusely covered with round black spots, sometimes 

 these are few, but never wholly absent; sides of head and caudal 

 fin with a peculiar metallic tin-coloured lustre; flesh rich salmon- 

 colour in spring, becoming paler as the spawning season ap- 

 proaches. In the late summer and autumn the jaws of the male 

 become elongate and distorted, the anterior teeth become greatly 

 enlarged, and the colour more or less tinged or blotched with 

 dull red. 



Silver Salmon 



Oncorhynchus kisutch (Walbaum) 



The silver salmon is blessed with a large number of ver- 

 nacular names, among which may be mentioned hoopid salmon, 

 coho; kisutch, skowitz; quisutsch, and bielaya ryba. Next to the 

 chinook and the blueback it is the most important of the genus. 

 It reaches a length of 15 inches, and a weight of 3 to 8 

 pounds, and is abundant from San Francisco northward along 

 both the American and Asiatic coasts, entering the shorter coastal 

 streams late in the fall. It occurs in Asiatic waters as far south 

 as Japan. In our waters it is especially abundant in Puget Sound, 

 the fjords of Alaska, and in the shorter rivers of Washington 

 and Oregon. 



As a food-fish, though inferior to the chinook and the blue- 

 back, it is of great importance. Large quantities are canned 

 every year on the Oregon and Washington coasts; it is one of 

 the best species to ship fresh. 



Its spawning season is later than that of the chinook. They 

 first appear in the southern end of Puget Sound about the first 

 of September, and the run usually lasts until the first or middle 

 of November. An examination of more than 2,000 examples at 

 Celilo on the Columbia River in September and October indi- 

 cated that their spawning time would not be later than October. 

 This species is common in Japan. 



Head 4; depth 4; D. 10; A. 13 or 14; Br. 13 or 14; pyloric 

 coeca very large and few, 45 to 80; scales 25-127-29; gillrakers 

 10+13, rather long and slender, nearly as long as eye. Body 

 slender and compressed; head short, shorter than in chinook of 

 same size, very conical, the snout bluntly pointed; interorbital 

 space broad and strongly convex; opercle and preopercle strongly 



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