120 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
THE PERIOD OF GROWTH. 
Of the ocean life of the salmon very little is known, although it comprises two- 
thirds of their existence. They have been taken in Tomales Bay when four months 
old, about 20 miles from the mouth of the stream in which they had been planted, 
and a few of about the same age have been taken in San Pablo Bay. These were 
on their way to the ocean and were already in nearly pure sea water. Specimens 8 
to 1 5 inches long are sometimes taken by anglers in San Francisco Bay. In the 
estuary and along the beach at Karluk, Kadiak Island, Alaska, the writer has seen 
schools of several hundred 8-incli red salmon that had come inshore with the adults. 
These were feeding and were not dwarfs on their way to spawning-grounds. 
Salmon are sometimes taken in the ocean near San Francisco in paranzella 
nets and are also captured in large numbers with the troll in Monterey Bay, where 
they appear in February and are found until the middle of August. 
Something of the ocean life of the salmon might be learned by making a study 
of the food found in the stomachs of individuals taken when they first enter Mon- 
terey Bay. At such times a portion of the food taken on their offshore feeding 
grounds should yet be in identifiable condition. The presence of deep-water fishes 
or crustaceans would indicate a deep-water life for the salmon. 
During its life in the sea the salmon is, of course, not entirely free from 
enemies, and something might be learned of them by studying the scars left by the 
injuries they inflict where they fail to kill. Injuries and deformities received before 
entering fresh water were of frequent occurrence among spawning fishes at Battle 
Creek in 1897, but no particular attention was given them. The males often had 
the snout twisted or split, or even cut off. Very often there were one or more scars 
extending obliquely backward and downward on the side above the anal fin. Some- 
times two or three were parallel, as if they were scratches made by teeth of some 
other fish while the salmon was smaller. These scars were more often present on 
the females. The dwarf females were always injured in some way. Very few 
injured fishes were observed in 1898. Two had lost the ventral fins, one had lost 
the lower two- thirds of the opercle, two had deformed backbones. Only one fish, a 
female, had the oblique and parallel scars mentioned; they were slightly curved and 
in two series of seven each. This subject is worthy of further consideration. 
A very characteristic scar, and one that always attracts attention, is that left by 
the sucking disk of the lamprey. The lamprey has no lower jaw, its mouth being 
circular and of the size of the end of its head. The gullet ends in the middle of the 
mouth and is bounded on the upper and lower sides by hooked teeth. There are 
other smaller hooked teeth above and below these on the disk, and on each side of the 
disk there are about four slioi't cross rows of teeth, and the whole circumference of 
the disk is beset with small teeth. When the lamprey attaches itself to another fish 
the outer row of small teeth leaves a scar somewhat resembling the milling on a coin, 
which lias led imaginative persons to see in the whole scar a resemblance to a brand 
made by a heated coin. The illustration on plate 13 is made from the photograph 
of a lamprey scar on the opercle of a blueback salmon found at Karluk, Alaska. 
In 1896 5,000 marked fry were released in a tributary of the Columbia River; 
about 400 of these were taken in 1898, and a few more each in 1899 and 1900. This 
indicates that most salmon remain in the ocean two years, though a few remain three 
or four years, as will be seen from the following chapter. 
