340 
ZOOLOGY. 
teeth; color of back greenish, beneath dirty white. This fish is poor eating. There is no 
apparent difference between the female of this and the stoaquid. The average weight is only 
5 or 6 pounds.” 
Concerning the Kamtschatka salmon, Sir John Richardson, in a foot note, gives the following 
quotation from Pennant’s Arct. Zool., Intr., p. cxxv : “The gorbuscha , or hunch-back, ascends 
the rivers in July. In form it resembles the grayling; never exceeds a foot and a half in length ; 
is of a silvery color and unspotted; the tail forked; the flesh white. After it has been some 
time in fresh water it changes its shape (the male especially) in a most surprising manner. 
The jaws and teeth grow prodigiously long, especially the upper, which is at first shortest, but 
soon shoots beyond the under, and grows crooked downwards; the body becomes emaciated, 
and the meat bad; but what is most characteristic, an enormous bunch rises just before the 
first dorsal fin, to which it owes its name. Its flesh is bad, so that this fish falls to the share of 
the dogs. Rays: D. 14-0; P. 15: V, 11, A, 18.” 
Pallas, in describing the gorbuscha , (S. proteus,) says that the body is unspotted and silvery; 
the “beak” conical; anal fin with 14 rays; caudal forked, spotted. It enters some of the 
Kamtschatkan rivers, avoiding others, leaving the sea about the middle of July. It ascends 
the rivers in such shoals that when the weather is calm the water is so agitated by the fish as 
to appear disturbed by waves, and they can then be readily taken with the hand. Their form 
becomes monstrous, the hump appearing, and the jaws become so curved that the mouth, 
which had been hitherto symmetrical, cannot be closed or receive food. After the month 
of August has been passed in generation, all of these fsjies perish in the rivers and strew the 
banks with their dead bodies, none returning alive to the sea. He adds that they appear to 
be on the opposite shores of America, quoting Vancouver, who says that he there found 
a sal m on with a hooked beak in both sexes , and a hump back in the male. He then gives 
a description of a particular individual of the species, having a length of 2 feet, and weight 
of 4 or 5 pounds. The teeth, which in the sea were soft and rudimentary, grow out, and the 
colors change greatly before death, becoming first blue, then livid, afterwards chestnut, and, 
from the loss of blood, the sides become stained with various morbid colors, as if it had been 
bruised. The fish in the sea is very active, but after entering fresh water becomes lean, 
inactive, and unsavory. The females are smaller and not numerous, being, when compared to 
the males, as one to twenty. The muzzles of the fresh run males are attenuated in a cylindrical 
form; the jaws equal, but finally much hooked. Upper jaws with a somewhat interrupted row 
of teeth on each side, of which all the anterior are strong and hooked; those posteriorly on the 
narrow maxillary plates awl-shaped, straight, and very small. Teeth on the lower jaw are not 
continuous behind the middle of its limbs; they are somewhat unequal, and are smaller than 
the teeth of the apex, which are large and hooked. Palate with a row of a few teeth along the 
middle , and another on each side, Br. rays 11 or 12. Body above covered with very small 
scales, those below the lateral line being larger. Adipose dorsal fin elongated. 
In the foregoing particulars the description applies admirably to the characters possessed by 
the two specimens in the Smithsonian collection, sent by Dr. Kennerly. The description of 
the jaws and the dental arrangement exactly applies, with the exception that in one of the 
Puget Sound specimens the vomerine teeth are wanting. 
Pallas adds that the lateral line is very straight, and placed rather near the back. It is 
apparently formed by the fusion of small scales; but upon close examination this appearance is 
found to result from the presence of hair-like sculpture on the scales. Dorsal fin anterior to 
