468 NATURAL HISTORY OP AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



Q. THE SALMON TRIBE. 



In Dr. Suckley's " Monograph of the Genus Salino," printed in 1873, forty-three species of 

 Trout and Salmon were enumerated as members of the fauna of North America. In the course of 

 the extensive revisions of our ichthyology which have recently been made, this group has been 

 sedulously studied. Only eighteen species are retained upon the list as amended by Professors 

 Gill and Jordan. While the number of species has been lessened, several new genera have been 

 proposed, and many changes in nomenclature necessitated. 



According to the latest system, the old genus Salmo, which in the standard works on angling 

 includes everything called by the names " Trout" and "Salmon," has been divided into groups. 

 The first, for which the name Salmo is retained, includes the Atlantic Salmon and the black-spotted 

 species of the west, the Rainbow Trout of the Pacific slope, Salmo irideus, the Rio Grande Trout, 

 S'. spilurus, with the two closely-related forms, more widely distributed through the Rocky Mount- 

 ain region, and regarded as subspecies of this type, also the Steel Head of the Columbia, <S'. 

 Gairdneri, and the common Black-spotted Trout, A'. Clarkii, which occurs in the Upper Missouri, 

 in Utah, in the Columbia River, and numerous other districts of the Northwest. In this same 

 group are included the Quiunat, or California Salmon, and its allies, which will be discussed here- 

 after. These have been placed in the genus OncorJiynchus. 



The second group includes the Chars, or Red-spotted Trout, and the gray-spotted species 

 known as Salmon Trout, or Lake Trout. These are assigned to the genus Salvelinws. 



160. THE SALMON SALMO SALAR. 1 



"In Aquitania the River Salmon surpasseth all the fishes of the sea," wrote Pliny, eighteen 

 hundred years ago. This was the Salmon's christening, and though nearly one hundred species of 

 the family Salmonldce are now known to naturalists, one has always stood pre-eminent, like a Scot- 

 tish chieftain, needing no other name than that of his clan. The luxurious Romans prized highly 

 the salmon streams in their Gallic and British provinces, if we may trust Pliny and Ausonius, and 

 that this fish was well known to the early English is evinced by the many Saxon names, such as 

 "Parr," "Peal," "Smolt," "Grilse," "Kipper," and "Baggit," given it in different stages of growth 

 in Great Britain and America. The Normans brought over the name of Latin origin, which they 

 applied to the perfect adult fish, ready for the banquets of the conqueror. When Cabot discovered 

 Newfoundland, in 1497, he found Salmon in its waters, but the red men had long before this known 

 the art of killing them with torches and wooden spears. 



DISTRIBUTION. Salmon inhabit the North Atlantic and its affluents. No one knows how 

 far beyond the Arctic Circle they range, though their occurrence in Greenland, Iceland, Northern 

 Scandinavia, and Middle Labrador is well established. They occur in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, 

 entering the Baltic and the waters of Russia, and, according to some authorities, the White Sea. 

 They abound in all the British Islands, where they are protected and fostered with great success, 

 and are more or less plenty in France, Belgium, Holland, and Prussia, ascending the Rhine as far 

 as Basle. The southern limit of their occurrence is in Galicia, the northwestern province of Spain, 



'This chapter is based upon the essay on the Salmon in "The Game Fishes of North America," by G. Brown 

 Coode, published by Charles Scribner's SODS. 



