484 AMERICAN FISHES. 
species is very uniform in its size, and averages ten to twelve pounds. It 
is seldom or never seen in the rivers in spring. 
THE CHOUICHA OR QUINNAT SALMON. 
The Quinnat Salmon, Oncorhynchus chouicha, ascends the large rivers 
of California and occurs northward to the Yukon in Alaska. 
This is the largest and most important species of the genus; it is said to 
reach one hundred pounds in weight. It is easily caught with hook and 
line in the fresh-waters, where it goes to deposit its eggs. It does not 
readily take a fly, but becomes an easy victim when tempted with salmon 
roe, which is the most effective of all baits for catching this fish. When 
prime it very much resembles in appearance the well known Atlantic 
Salmon (Sa/mo salar) in the same condition, with this exception, that it 
has on its back and sides nearly black, star-like spots, while the Atlantic 
Salmon, when fresh from the ocean, has none. 
The California Salmon is a remarkable fish, and has an extraordinary 
career. Fifty years ago it was hardly known, except to students of natural 
history. Now it is known and eaten almost all over the world, for there 
is hardly a port in the world where ships have not carried the canned 
Salmon of the Columbia, which is the same fish under a different name; 
and not only has this fish, in the form of food, traveled nearly all over the 
world, but the living embryos of the California Salmon have been trans- 
ported to England, France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Russia, Austra- 
lia, and New Zealand, so that there is probably no one fish inhabiting a 
limited locality which is known over the world in so many different places 
as the California Salmon. An admirable biography of this species by Mr. 
Livingston Stone, may be found in the Quarto Fishery Report. 
