30 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
flesh is somewhat paler than that of the red salmon, yet it has a beautiful color. 
Properly introduced into the markets this would become a very valuable fish, and its 
wonderful abundance would establish a great industry. 
The height of the spawning season in the Kadiak streams is evidently about the 
middle of August. In Alexander Creek, near the Larsen Cove cannery of the Arctic 
Packing Company, Messrs. Eobert Lewis and Livingston Stone found the humpbacks 
spawning in vast numbers August 15. Mr. Lewis took some of the eggs and fertilized 
them with the milt of the males. The eggs are larger than those of the red salmon, 
but smaller than king salmon eggs and not so bright red. On the 22d of August, 
1889, this fish was observed in the small streams at the head of the west arm of Uyak 
Bay trying to run up the rapids in order to spawn. The current in some places was so 
swift as to wash the fish away. Eggs were very plentiful between the crevices of the 
stones. On the 24th of August Alexander Creek was full of humpbacks in all stages 
of emaciation and decay. In Alitak Bay, September 9, the fish were nearly all dead 
in the creeks, and Snug Harbor contained many dying humpback salmon floating sea- 
ward tail first. Messrs. Booth and Stone found Afognak Biver well filled with spawn- 
ing humpbacks August 30. The two tributaries of Afognak Eiver also contained them 
in great numbers. Mr. Booth found the fish most abundant in the neighborhood of 
holes excavated in the egg-sized gravel of the bottom, intermingled with stones of 3 
or 4 pounds in weight. 
After the great run in the Karluk, already referred to, the fish came down dead 
or in a dying condition for a whole month and the beaches were strewn with dead sal- 
mon. The distortion of the humpback during the breeding season is remarkable and 
the injury to its fins, and other exposed portions of the body, is excessive. The last 
stages of this species are repulsive to look upon, but before the extensive emaciation 
and sloughing away of the skin has taken place the colors of the breeding fish are 
rather pleasing, the lower parts becoming milky white, contrasting beautifully with 
the darker color of the sides and back. This white color sometimes extends upward 
toward the middle line with interruptions. 
The Red Salmon ( Oncorhynchus nerlca). Plate II, Figs. 2 and 3. 
This is the blueback of the lower Columbia Eiver, the Sawqui or SuMegh of the 
Frazer Eiver, and the Krasnaya Byba (or redfish) of the Eussians. It does not seem 
to exist south of the Columbia Eiver. Northward it is found as far as the Yukon, 
and it occurs also in Japan and Kamschatka. 
Although next to the smallest of the Pacific salmons this is now the most impor- 
tant species for canning and salting, and its flesh is so red as to win for it a reputation 
not warranted by its edible qualities. It approaches the shores early in the spring 
and enters only snow-fed streams. The red salmon is not caught, like the king and 
silver salmon, by trolling in the bays. When it comes into the mouths of the streams, 
to ascend for the purpose of spawning, the fishing begins. 
The size of the red salmon varies with the locality and season. Some runs con- 
tain much larger fish than others. At Karluk the fish will average nearly 4 pounds 
apiece without the head, fins, tail, and viscera. The whole fish will weigh 7 or 8 
pounds. In 1889 it was eatimated that 13 fish would make a case (48 pounds) of canned 
salmon ; in 1891 the number to the case was stated to have been 15. Individuals of 
15 pounds are occasionally seen, but they are uncommon. 
