PISCES—SALMON. | 729 
ORDER VI.—MALACOPTERYGII ABDOMI- 
NALES. 
TuesE fishes have the skeleton osseous ; jaws complete; bronchi pecti- 
nated; all the rays of the fins soft, except sometimes the first ray of the 
dorsal, or pectoral fins ; ventral fins behind the abdomen. 
THE SALMON} 

Is distinguished from otner fish by having two dorsal fins, of which the 
hindermost is fleshy and without rays; they have teeth both in the jaws and 
the tongue, and the body is covered with round and minutely striated scales. 
Gray is the color of the back and sides, sometimes spotted with black, and 
sometimes plain. The belly is silvery. It is entirely a northern fish, being 
found both at Greenland, Kamtschatka, and the northern parts of North 
America, but never so far south as the Mediterranean. Salmon are now 
scarce in all our rivers south of the Merrimac. In the Connecticut they 
were once so abundant as to be less esteemed than shad, and the fishermen 
used to require their purchasers to take some salmon with their shad. Within 
the memory of persons living, they were taken in plenty even as far up as 
Vermont. The Indians used to catch a great many of them, as they were 
ascending Bellows Falls. It is supposed that the locks, dams, and canals 
constructed in the river, have driven this valuable fish away. About the 
latter end of the year, the salmon begin to press up the rivers, even for hun- 
dreds of miles, to deposit their spawn, which lies buried m the sand till 
spring, if not disturbed by the floods, or devoured by other fishes. In this 
peregrination it is not to be stopped, even by cataracts. About March, the 
young ones begin to appear, and about the beginning of May, the river is 
full of the salmon fry, which are then four or five inches long, and gradually 
proceed to the sea. About the middle of June, the earliest fry begin tb 
return again from the sea, and are then from twelve to fourteen inches long. 
The growth of this fish is so extraordinary, that a young salmon being taken 
at Warrington, and which weighed seven pounds on the seventh of Februa- 

2 Salmo salar, Lix. The genus Salmo has the greater part of the upper jaw formed by 
the maxillary bones; mouth large and furnished with teeth; ventral fins opposite the 
middle of the first dorsal, and the adipose fin opposite the anal; bronchial membrane 
with more than eight rays. 
