HISTORY OB" THE PACIFIC SALMOIf. 



597 



a better defined scar, but Quinnat scales are very thin and 

 flexible, and besides are well protected by a great thickening of 

 the outer skin at spawning time, so they may never become much 

 worn at the edges. That they mny not have become much worn 

 lap to the actual time of spawning is shown by text-fig. 110, a 

 photograph of a scale removed from a 12 lb. Quinnat after it had 

 spawned in the South Thomson River, about 300 miles from the 

 sea. That scale not only sustained the wear from the shrinkage 

 of the fish owing to lost condition between the time at which it 

 left ofF feeding, which the lines following the last winter band 



Scale of 12 lb. Quinnat (O. tscliaivytscha) from South Thomson River. 

 Fish speared after spawning, 13th October, 1911. 



show to have been quite early in the year, until it was speared 

 for me under the supervision of Mr. John Brown of Celista, B.C., 

 on the night of 13th October, 1911 ; but the skin was sent to me 

 dried and folded, and I removed the scales from it myself. As this 

 scale shows so little sign of wear at the edge, it seems to me quite 

 conceivable that the mark *S' on text-fig. 95 is a spawning mark. 

 If it is not, I am unable to suggest any other explanation of it. 



Compare text-fig. 95 with text-fig. 109. These scales were 

 taken from fish caught at the same place at the same time. There 

 are more lines after the last winter ring on the former than on 



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