426 Storer on the 
Fawuiiy IV. 
SALMONIDES. 
Saumo. Lin. cu 
Generic characters. Head smooth, cos d with i." 
scales ; two dorsal fins, the first SE by rays, 
the ed fleshy, without rays ; teeth on the vomer, 
- both palatine bones, and ail the mazillary y bones; 
branchiostegous rays varying in number, generally 
from ten to twelve, but sometimes unequal on the two 
sides of the head of the same fish. 
S. salar. Lin. The Salmon. 
Pennant’s British Zoology, vol. iv. 249 et fig. 
Mc Murtrie’s Cuv. vol. ii. 222. 
Yarrell’s British Fishes, vol. ii. p. 1. fig. 
Strack’s plates, 123. 1 & 2. 
The building of dams and manufacturing estab- 
lishments, by preventing the fishes from going UP 
the rivers to deposit their spawn, has almost entirely 
annihilated this species in our State. Forty-five 
years since, it was very abundant in the Merrimac 
river, so much so that nine individuals have been 
taken in an afternoon by one person with a dip net; 
and the usual price was eight cents per pound. 
About seventeen years since, two wagons, each 
bringing from 30 to 40 fine salmon from the Merri- 
mac river, supplied the Boston market every week 
during the season of the fish. Now the few speci- 
mens taken are looked upon as rarities, and our mar- 
ket is supplied by the fishery of the Kennebec. 
The average weights of the Merrimac salmon are 
