444 AMERICAN FISHES. 



abundant, but many stragglers have been taken in the Housatonic and 

 Hudson. Much effort has been put forth in trying to prove that the Salmon, 

 of which HendncK. Hudson saw "great store" in 1609, when sailing up 

 the river which bears his name, were weak-fish, or some equally remote 

 species. Surely weak-fish do not go up the river to the Highlands. Sal- 

 mon nave from time to time been seen in the Delaware, it is said, and, if 

 this be true, it renders the story of Hudson still more credible. 



There can be no doubt that one hundred years ago the Salmon fishery 

 was an important industry in Southern New England. Many Connecti- 

 cut people remember hearing their grandfathers say that when they went 

 to the river to buy shad, the fishermen used to stipulate that they should 

 also buy a specified number of Salmon. There is a tradition of a farmer's 

 wife in New Hampshire who used to spear Salmon with a pitchfork to pro- 

 vide food for the farm hands. At the beginning of this century they 

 began rapidly to diminish. Mitchill stated, in 1814, that in former days 

 the supply to the New York market usually came from Connecticut River, 

 but of late years from the Kennebec, covered with ice. Rev. David 

 Dudley Field, writing in 18 19, stated that Salmon had scarcely been seen 

 in the Connecticut for fifteen or twenty years. The circumstances of their 

 extermination in the Connecticut are well known, and the same story, 

 names and date changed, serves equally well for other rivers. 



In 1798 a corporation, known as the "Upper Locks and Canals Com- 

 pany," built a dam, sixteen feet high, at Miller's River, one hundred miles 

 from the mouth of the Connecticut. For two or three years fish were 

 observed in great abundance below the dam, and for perhaps ten years 

 they continued to appear, vainly striving to reach their spawning grounds ; 

 but soon the work of extermination was complete. When, in 1872, a 

 solitary Salmon made its appearance, the Saybrook fishermen could not 

 give it a name. 



In 1878, at least five hundred large fish were caught in these wates, the 

 direct result of the labors of the State commissioners of fisheries in 1S74. 

 This story of destruction, with a change of names and dates, may be 

 repeated for the Merrimac and many other rivers. Mr. C. G. Atkins 

 recorded, in 1872, twenty-eight Salmon rivers lying wholly or in part in 

 the United States, in only eight of which Salmon were at that time regular 

 visitors. The story of restoration will, it is hoped, soon be applicable to 

 these, and perhaps to others to which the species is not native. Thack- 



