When fresh-run, this fish in colour is of a silvery-grey lustre; back, overshot with a greenish hue; belly, silvery-white; no spots on either the back or sides. The hooked nose, said to be peculiar to the male fish after spawning, is a well-marked, constant, and specific character in every fresh-run fish, the females having at all times symmetrical jaws. I found, from carefully observing great numbers of these fresh-run males, that the hooked state of the snout differs very materially in fish arriving at the same period; and I am quite convinced that large numbers of these salmon do get back again to the saltwater after spawning, and that the strange change that takes place in the hooking over of the snout and growth of the teeth, during their sojourn in the rivers, remains a permanent mark; and the vast difference observable in the males, at the time of arrival, is simply attributable to the fact, that those having the large fanglike teeth and tremendously crooked snout are such as have been up the rivers perhaps the year before, or, it may be, long prior to that period. In every stream and rill, where they can by any possibility work a passage, you find these salmon; they remain until January and February in the succeeding year, becoming fearfully emaciated and worn, from a long and tedious abstinence; for I believe these salmon feed sparely, if at all, after leaving the sea. The fish in January is of a pale dirty-yellow colour; the sides, showing a bright purplish stripe (sure sign of waning vitality), are flattened and compressed; the back is straight until near its posterior third, when it dips down suddenly, and rises again at the tail just as if you had cut a notch out. The belly, instead of being silvery-white, is rusty yellow, and hangs pendulous and flabby; the eye is dull and sunken. But the most curious change is in the head of the male fish: the nose becomes enormously elongated, and hooks down like a gaff-hook over the under-jaw, and the under-jaw bends up at the point into a kind of spike that fits into a regular sheath or hole in the upper jaw, just where it begins bending into the hook-like point; the teeth become regular fangs, sticking out round the jaws at irregular distances, and having a yellow bonelike appearance. I have often seen the teeth more than half an inch in length. It is quite clear that these teeth grow during the time the fish remain in fresh-water; no shrinking of the gums could account for such a length of tooth; and their use, I believe, is for fighting.