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Humpback Salmon
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The humpback salmon reaches a weight of 3 to 6 pounds and is the smallest of the genus. It is found on the Pacific Coast and ascending the rivers of America and Asia from California and Japan northward.
In the rivers of Alaska it appears every year in great abundance; in Puget Sound there seems to be a periodicity in its movements, the runs of the alternate, odd years (1887, 1889, etc.) being much larger than in the even years. In the Sacramento River it occurs each year but in very limited numbers and is there known as the lost salmon. Among other names applied to this species are haddo, holia, and dog salmon of Alaska, though it is not the real dog salmon.
Branchiostegals 11 or 12; gillrakers 13+15; A. 15; D. 11; scales 210 to 240, about 170 in the lateral line; pyloric coeca very slender, about 180. Body rather slender, in the female plump and symmetrical, in the fall males very thin and compressed, with the fleshy dorsal hump much developed, the jaws greatly elongated, strongly hooked, and with extravagant canines in front, ventral appendage half as long as the fin. Colour, bluish, sides silvery; back posteriorly, adipose fin, and tail with numerous black spots, those of the caudal fin oblong in form and especially large; fall males red, more or less blotched with brownish. This species may be known at once by the very small scales and the coarse, oblong spots on the tail. In Japan is a very similar species, Oncorhynchus masou Brevoort, with equally small scales, but the tail unspotted.
The humpback salmon has not usually been regarded as possessing any food-value, but in some of the salmon canneries it is now canned and shipped East and South, where it is put upon the market under fictitious labels and retailed as one of the cheaper grades of salmon. It is often called "negro salmon" at the canneries, but when prepared, the name "pink salmon" is in common use, as distinguished from the "red salmon," Oncorhynchus nerka.
Dog Salmon
Oncorhynchus Keta (Walbaum)
The dog salmon reaches a weight of 10 to 12 pounds. It is found usually in great abundance from the Sacramento northward to Kamchatka and Bering Straits, ascending all suitable streams in the fall, and spawning at no great distance from the sea in the smaller streams, which they enter in marvellous numbers, crowding upon each other in the most appalling manner.
As a food-fish the dog salmon (also known as the calico salmon, hayho, or lekai salmon) is the least valuable of the genus. Not until recent years was it used at all by the canners, and even now when used it is put upon the market under fictitious names. At the time of its run the males of this species are much distorted, and the flesh is valueless. This species is the common large salmon or sake of the rivers of Japan.
Head 4; depth 4; D. 9; A. 13 or 14; scales about 28-150-30; branchiostegals 13 or 14; gillrakers 9+15; pyloric coeca 140 to 185. General form that of the chinook, but the head rather longer, more depressed and pike-like; preopercle more broadly convex behind, and the maxillary extending considerably beyond the eye; gillrakers few, coarse and stout; accessory pectoral scale short, less than half length of fin. Colour, dusky above; sides paler, little lustrous; back and sides with no definite spots, but with fine punctulations which are often entirely obsolete; head dusky, scarcely any metallic lustre on head or tail; caudal dusky, plain, or very finely spotted, its edge usually distinctly blackish; fins all mostly blackish, especially in males; breeding males generally blackish above, the sides brick-red, often barred or mottled.