218 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



much of the spirit to run out, and the consequence was, that six specimens of salmon 

 were incorporated into one mass by the continued motion of the vessel. The other 

 fish, being of a smaller size, less oily, and perhaps more indurated by longer immer- 

 sion in spirits, arrived in better condition. By picking the bones of the salmon out 

 of the putrid mass, I have been able to make a few additions to Dr. Gairdner's de- 

 scriptions quoted below. In all the specimens the vertebrae are more numerous than 

 in the European species. It is to be observed, that the two or three last vertebrae of 

 the tail diminish rapidly in size and turn up, the square form of the termination of 

 the vertebral column in the Salmonoidece being produced by the dilatation of the 

 interspinous bones attached to the under side of the curved point of the spine; while 

 the corresponding upper interspinous bones are slender, awl-shaped, crowded, and 

 irregular. The reader will find notices of the salmon of the North-west coast by 

 referring back to pages 158 and 162, as well as in the passages quoted above from 

 Harmon's Travels ; and to complete the history of the fish of the Columbia, 

 as far as known, I will add the mode of stacking the salmon, described in 

 Lewis and Clarke's Journal. " Near our camp are five large huts of Indians 

 engaged in drying fish, and preparing it for the market. The manner of doing 

 this is by first opening the fish and exposing it to the sun on their scaffolds. When 

 sufficiently dried, it is pounded fine between two stones, and is then placed in 

 a basket about two feet long and one in diameter, neatly made of grass and rushes, 

 and lined with the skin of a salmon stretched and dried for the purpose. Here 

 they are pressed down as hard as possible, and the top covered with skins of fish, 

 which are secured by cords through the holes of the basket. The baskets are then 

 placed in some dry situation, the corded part upwards, seven being usually placed 

 as close as they can be put together, and five on the top of them. The whole is 

 then wrapped up in mats, and made fast by cords, over which mats are again 

 thrown. Twelve of these baskets, each of which contains from ninety to a hun- 

 dred pounds, form a stack, which is left exposed till it is sent to market ; the fish 

 thus preserved is kept sound and sweet for several years, and great quantities of it, 

 they inform us, are sent to the Indians who live below the falls, whence it finds its 

 way to the whites who visit the mouth of the Columbia. We observe, both near 

 the lodges and on the rocks of the river, great numbers of stacks of these pounded 

 fish." (Lewis and Clarke, ii., p. 275.) " The salmon (S. quinnat) is almost the 

 only fish caught in great abundance above the falls ; but below that place we ob- 

 serve the salmon-trout, and the heads of a species of trout smaller than the salmon- 

 trout, which is in great quantities, and which they are now burying to be used as 

 their winter food. A hole of any size being dug, the sides and bottom are lined 



