OSSEOUS FISHES. 
553 
SALMONIDiE. 
Tlie fishes of this family are graceful in shape, and have the body 
clothed in scales ; they have two dorsals, the first with soft rays, fol- 
lowed by a second, which is smaller, formed without rays, and adipose — 
that is, formed simply of a skin filled with fatty matter, unsupported 
by osseous rays. They inhabit the seas of temperate and northern 
regions; ascending the rivers at certain seasons, and, in some in- 
stances, living exclusively in the great rivers and watercourses. They 
are found even in the most elevaled mountain brooks. The grayling 
or shad, guiniad, sprat, trout, and the salmon, the type of the family, 
belong to the group. 
The genus Salmo includes three species, namely, Sahno salor, 
8. croix, and 8. trutta, the trout. Of these, 8. salor (Fig 376) has the 
Fig. 376. Adult, Salmon. 
body long, the muzzle roundish, but more so in the male than in the 
female, the upper jaw provided with a fossette, into which the point of 
the lower jaw penetrates ; the back is a slaty blue, the sides and lower 
part of the body of a silvery diaphanous white, with great black spots 
scattered round the upper part of the head, round the' upper edge of the 
