302 Salmonide 
December, and takes place usually as soon as the temperature 
of the water falls to 54°. The manner of spawning is probably 
similar for all the species. In the quinnat the fishes pair off; 
the male, with tail and snout, excavates a broad, shallow “nest”’ 
in the gravelly bed of the stream, in rapid water, at a depth 
of one to four feet and the female deposits her eggs in it. 
They then float down the stream tail foremost, the only 
fashion in which salmon descend to the sea. As already 
stated, in the head-waters of the large streams, unquestionably, 
all die; it is the belief of the writer that none ever survive. 
The young hatch in sixty days, and most of them return to 
the ocean during the high water of the spring. They enter the 
river as adults at the age of about four years. 
The salmon of all kinds in the spring are silvery, spotted 
or not according to the species, and with the mouth about equally 
symmetrical in both sexes. As the spawning season approaches 
the female loses her silvery color, becomes more slimy, the 
scales on the back partly sink into the skin, and the flesh changes 
from salmon-red and becomes variously paler, from the loss of 
oil; the degree of paleness varying much with individuals and 
with inhabitants of different rivers. In the Sacramento the 
flesh of the quinnat, in either spring or fall, is rarely pale. In 
the Columbia a few with pale flesh are sometimes taken in 
spring, and an increasing number from July on. In Frazer 
River the fall run of the quinnat is nearly worthless for canning 
purposes, because so many are “white-meated.’”’ In the spring 
very few are “ white-meated’’; but the number increases towards 
fall, when there is every variation, some having red streaks 
running through them, others being red toward the head and 
pale toward the tail. The red and pale ones cannot be dis- 
tinguished externally, and the color is dependent on neither 
age nor sex. There is said to be no difference in the taste, but 
there is little market for canned salmon not of the conventional 
orange-color. 
As the season advances the difference between the males 
ard females becomes more and more marked, and keeps pace 
with the development of the milt, as is shown by dissection. 
The males have (1) the premaxillaries and the tip of the lower 
jaw more and more prolonged, both of the jaws becoming finally 
