ZOOLOGY. 141 
do not go far from the sea or ascend the small tributaries ; but 
elsewhere they ascend every little brook, up to points where 
there is svarcely enough water for them to swim; aud in these 
expeditions they are so much exhausted and bruised that they 
soon die; but the number thus killed is as nothing compared 
with those which go out to sea again. The female salmon 
having found a suitable place, uses her nose to dig a trench in 
the sand about six feet long, a foot wide, and three inches 
deep, and having deposited her spawn in it, throws a little sand 
over it with her tail, and departs, leaving her eggs to be 
hatched and the offspring to be fed as best they can. In the 
month of May the young salmon are found on their way to: the 
sea, from three to six inches long. It is supposed that the 
salmon always return to the river in which they were born; 
so that the salmon born in the Klamath River never enter San 
Francisco Bay, nor do those born in the Sacramento and San 
Joaquin Rivers ever enter Humboldt Bay. Although the sea- 
son in which salmon are abundant in the rivers extends from 
November to June, yet ssme of them are found in the streams 
of California at all seasons, and they can be had fresh in the 
San Francisco market every day in the year. 
The quinnat is the chief salmon of all the streams and bays 
of California, but Gairdner’s salmon (Lario gairdneri) is found 
in the Klamath River, and the stellatus salmon in Humboldt 
Bay and its tributaries. Gairdner’s salmon has a silvery-gray 
back, silvery sides, and a yellowish-white belly. The body has 
numerous indistinct, blackish spots. The stellatus salmon is 
light-olive in the back, yellowish-white on the belly, and rarely 
exceeds two or three pounds in weight. 
§ 109. Halibut.—There are two species of halibut on the 
coast of California, the Californian (Hippoglossus cali fornicus) 
and the common (Hippoglossus vulgaris). There is some 
doubt whether the latter species is properly named ; if it be, 
then we have one species of fish found on the Atlantic coast. 
The Californian halibut is a slender fish, weighing at the 
largest twenty-five pounds, in color grayish-brown above and 
