The Chinook Salmon 



sea in the smaller streams, which they enter in marvellous num- 

 bers, crowding upon each other in the most appalling manner. 

 As a food-fish the dog salmon (also known as the calico 

 salmon, hayho, or lekai salmon) is the least valuable of the 

 genus. Not until recent years was it used at all by the can- 

 ners, and even now when used it is put upon the market 

 under fictitious names. At the time of its run the males of this 

 species are much distorted, and the flesh is valueless. This 

 species is the common large salmon or sake of the rivers of 

 Japan. 



Head 4; depth 4; D. 9; A. 13 or 14; scales about 28-150-30; 

 branchiostegals 13 or 14; gillrakers Q-I-15; pyloric coeca 140 to 

 185. General form that of the chinook, but the head rather 

 longer, more depressed and pike-like; preopercle more broadly 

 convex behind, and the maxillary extending considerably beyond 

 the eye; gillrakers few, coarse and stout; accessory pectoral scale 

 short, less than half length of fin. Colour, dusky above; sides 

 paler, little lustrous; back and sides with no definite spots, but 

 with fine punctulations which are often entirely obsolete; head 

 dusky, scarcely any metallic lustre on head or tail; caudal dusky, 

 plain, or very finely spotted, its edge usually distinctly blackish; 

 fins all mostly blackish, especially in males; breeding males gen- 

 erally blackish above, the sides brick-red, often barred or 

 mottled. 



Chinook Salmon 



OncorJiyjtclms tscliawytscha (Walbaum) 



Other names by which this fish is known are quinnat 

 salmon, king salmon, Columbia River salmon, Sacramento salmon, 

 tyee, tchaviche, and tschawytscha. 



It is found on both coasts of the Pacific, from Monterey 

 Bay, California, and China, north to Bering Straits, ascending all 

 large streams, especially the Sacramento, Columbia and Yukon, 

 in all of which it is very abundant. It ascends the large rivers 

 in spring and summer, moving up without feeding, until the 

 spawning season, by which time many of those which started 

 first may have travelled a thousand miles or more. The run 

 begins in the Columbia River as early as February or March. 

 At first they travel leisurely, moving up only a few miles each 



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