CHAPTER XVII 



THE SALMON 



HE name salmon is given in England and all 

 Eastern States to a large trout-like fish which 

 lives in the sea, chiefly about the mouths of 

 rivers, and which enters the streams to spawn, 

 running for a considerable distance up the stream and re- 

 turning to the sea after the act of spawning is accomplished. 

 The old males become somewhat distorted, especially 

 through the lengthening of the jaws, but the changes with 

 age and season are not much greater than in any large trout. 

 The true salmon, like the true trout, is black spotted. It is 

 called in science Salmo salar, and along with the true trout 

 it belongs to the genus Salmo. There is but one species of 

 Atlantic salmon ; it is found on both sides, of the ocean, and 

 on both sides it becomes, sometimes, land-locked and dwarf- 

 ish when it is shut up in a lake, and when it cannot, or does 

 not go to the sea. 



In the North Pacific, on both coasts, there are five differ- 

 ent species of fishes called salmon. They do not belong to 

 the genus Salmo, but to a peculiar group called Oncorhyn- 

 chus, or hook-snout. In all the species of Oncorhynchus, 

 every individual, large or small, old or young, male or fe- 

 male, dies after the act of spawning is completed. All the 

 tissues of the body become degenerate ; the muscle is as dead 

 as a dead cornstalk, and when the eggs, or the milt, are de- 

 posited, all life processes are at a standstill. This in itself 

 distinguishes Oncorhynchus from Salmo. Other character- 

 istics are the great elongation of the jaws in the old males, 

 which are hooked over at the tip, and on which the front 



146 



