538 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



long residence on the borders of Lake Champlain, I have observed that a 

 particular kind of fish will occasionally, through several successive 

 seasons, be very abundant; that the supply gradually diminishes, until, 

 in the end, they nearly disappear, while another variety becomes 

 predominant, rapidly increases as the first decreases, and they also 

 pass through the same changes. Tbe smelt, a marine fish, was, until, 

 a comparatively recent period, almost unknown to the fishermen of the 

 lake; but in late years it is often taken in vast quantities through the 

 ice, while in some seasons it is rarely seen. Such, also, has been largely 

 the history of a choice fish known in this region as the lake-shad. 



3. — TRAITS OF THE SALMON. 



The pertinacity of the salmon in renewing, after repeated failures, 

 their attempts to leap up falls too high for their powers, and the vast 

 muscular force they exhibited, was witnessed by the settlers with equal 

 worfder and admiration. I do not kuow that the myth, which once 

 prevailed in the popular faith of England and Scotland, that the salmon 

 taking the tail in its mouth formed a wheel and thus rolled up the cas- 

 cade, ever obtained in this region ; but the stories of tbe pioneers 

 and old fishermen were almost equally marvelous. The fish ascended 

 the precipice by the mere exertion of physical strength; but the method 

 which it is said they adopted to secure a safe descent reveals a wonder- 

 ful instinct or a rare exercise of sagacity and intelligence. They were 

 accustomed, it is related, to approach very near the verge of a fall, and 

 instead of allowing themselves to be precipitated headlong or rolled 

 sideways down the current, with the imminent peril of being dashed upon 

 the rocks below or drowned, they would deliberately turn their tails 

 toward the cascade and by the vigorous action of their fins and motion 

 of their bodies would maintain their position and be borne safely down 

 the obstacle. 



The progress of the salmon in their annual migration from the sea to 

 the tributaries of the lake seems to have been singularly slow and 

 methodical. Instead of diffusing themselves at once and promiscuously 

 through the lake, the advance from the north was apparently controlled 

 by a system or some law of instinct. The old fishermen all concur in 

 the recollection that a considerable interval, varying in their statements 

 from one week to a month, always occurred between the time of arrival 

 of the fish in the Saranac and their appearance in the Au Sable, 

 although the mouths of these streams are only separated by a space of 

 about twelve miles. Incidents in the habits of the salmon, which came 

 under my personal observation more than fifty years ago, expose some 

 traits which possibly may be regarded in the measures in progress to 

 rehabilitate the streams with these fish. A high bridge spanned the 

 Saranac, near its mouth, in the village of Plattsburgh; a massive dam 

 stood a few rods above, as it did at the commencement of the century ; 

 on the west end of the dam, the statutory trough or slope had been 

 constructed, and on the opposite end was situated a large saw-mill, 



