160 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



meantime her husband was employed in gathering wood to make a fire, for the 

 purpose of heating stones. When she had finished her operation she filled a 

 watape * kettle nearly full of water and poured the roes into it. When the stones 

 were sufficiently heated, some of them were put into the kettle, and others were 

 thrown in from time to time till the water was in a state of boiling. The woman 

 also continued stirring the contents of the kettle till they were brought into a state 

 of consistency ; the stones were then taken out, and the whole seasoned with about 

 a pint of rancid oil. The smell of this curious dish was sufficient to sicken me 

 without tasting it, but the hunger of my people surmounted the nauseous meal. 

 When unmixed with oil the roes are not unpalatable." 



We have no means of ascertaining whether the Observatory Inlet salmon be one 

 of the several kinds seen by LangsdorfTat the island of Kodiak and on the adjacent 

 coast, nor whether Dr. Scouler's conjecture, that it is the same species Avhich abounds 

 in the Columbia be correct ; but Lewis and Clark's account of the salmon they 

 observed in that river is subjoined to the following description of Salmo Scouleri. 



DESCRIPTION 

 Of a specimen taken in Observatory Inlet by Dr. Scouler, 1825. 



Form. — The profile is much arched between the nape and the dorsal fin, and the body there 

 is thick but gradually tapers to the caudal. Head convex, transversely between the eyes, but 

 in profile descending nearly in a straight line from the nape to the nostrils. Orbit ovate, situ- 

 ated more than thrice its length from the posterior edge of the gill-cover. The posterior orbitar 

 bones reach backwards to the upper angle of the preoperculum. The nostrils open about half 

 an inch anterior to the orbit. The jaws are very long, and, in our specimen, the intermaxil- 

 laries are greatly prolonged and incurvated, projecting beyond the lower jaw: they are about 

 two-thirds of the length of the labials. This prolongation and incurvature is said to be pecu- 

 liar to the male after spawning |, and is accompanied by great, enlargement of the teeth which 

 are implanted in the intermaxillaries and knobbed extremity of the lower jaw. The labials 

 are linear-lanceolate and straight : their posterior tips pass a little beyond the upper angle of 

 the preoperculum, or within half an inch of the nape : the union between the two pieces of 

 the labial is so complete that the suture cannot, be distinguished. The under jaw is termi- 

 nated by a dilated and slightly incurved knob which is armed with very strong hooked teeth : 

 its articulation is about an inch posterior to the nape, and its length exceeds that of the upper 

 surface of the head, including the snout, by about three quarters of an inch. The head, mea- 

 sured from the tip of the lower jaw to the edge of the suboperculum, forms one-fourth of the 



* JVutape is the root of the pine-tree, and the kettle is a basket made of the flexible twigs woven so compactly together 

 as to be water-tight. 



j A specimen of a salmon, probably Salmo hamulus, once belonging to Donovan, and now in the British Museum, has 

 a hooked nose very like that of Salmo Scouleri. 



