20 DESCRIPTION, CLASSIFICATION, AND 



to the tail, and by the nearly equal convexity of back 

 and belly are common to both salmon and ouananiche. 

 But the ouananiche of the Grande Decharge and 

 equally rapid waters elsewhere is an even more grace- 

 ful, more active, and more athletic fish than the visitor 

 to other streams from the sea, and is consequently 

 somewhat longer and slimmer in shape. Thus, while a 

 well-conditioned salmon twenty-five inches in length 

 will exceed six pounds in weight, a ouananiche of the 

 same length, taken from rapid water, will weigh little 

 more than five pounds. Its fins are larger and stronger 

 than those of the Salmo solar, to enable it to do more 

 effective battle with its foes in the heavy rapids in 

 which it is found. Its tail is unusually broad and 

 affords it a wonderful leverage, the caudal fin of a six- 

 pound specimen having shown a spread of eight and a 

 half inches. The eye of the ouananiche is much larger 

 than that of the ordinary salmon, the St. Andrew's 

 cross marks upon the sides are closer together, and 

 there are larger and more distinct black spots upon the 

 gill-covers, in shape both round and irregular. 



Mr. J. G. Aylwin Creighton, of Ottawa, in his mono- 

 graph of the fish in Shields's American Game Fishes, 

 has furnished one of the most complete anatomical 

 descriptions of the ouananiche yet published. I have 

 verified it in almost every particular, and take pleasure 

 in quoting the following extracts : 



"The preoperculum, or small bone at the back of the gill-cover, 

 has the rounded corner characteristic of the salmon. The system of 

 dentition in the wananishe is precisely that of Salmo solar, but the 

 teeth are larger and more numerous on the vomer and palatines. 

 This is probably a case of specific adaptation, as the wananishe 



