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Chinook Salmon — Part 2
Images coming soon.
This splendid salmon is unknown in Japan, its range extending little south of Kamchatka on the Asiatic side.
Head 4; depth 4; D. 11; A. 16; Br. 15 or 16 to 18 or 19, the number on the two sides always unlike; gillrakers usually 9+14; pyloric coeca 140 to 185; scales 27-146-29, the number in longitudinal series varying from 135 to 155; vertebrae 66. Head conic, rather pointed in the females and spring males; maxillary rather slender, the small eye behind its middle; teeth small, longer on sides of lower jaw; vomerine teeth very few and weak, disappearing in the males; body comparatively robust, its depth greatest near its middle; ventral inserted behind middle of dorsal; ventral appendage half as long as fin; caudal strongly forked, on a slender peduncle. Colour, dusky above, often tinged with olivaceous or bluish on sides; silvery below; head dark slaty, usually darker than the body, and with few spots; back, dorsal fin and tail usually profusely covered with round black spots, sometimes these are few, but never wholly absent; sides of head and caudal fin with a peculiar metallic tin-coloured lustre; flesh rich salmon-colour in spring, becoming paler as the spawning season approaches. In the late summer and autumn the jaws of the male become elongate and distorted, the anterior teeth become greatly enlarged, and the colour more or less tinged or blotched with dull red.