CONFERENCES WITH STATE COMMISSIONERS. 7G9 



Professor Baird, with reference to the introdiictiou of sea-salmon into 

 the hikes, said he had fall confidence that the experiment would he suc- 

 cessful with the Penobscot salmon. 



It is well known that the food of the salmon, in the North Atlantic, 

 consists largely of small shrimps, about half an inch long, belonging, 

 to a considerable extent, to the genus Jlysis, and which oc(!ur in great 

 abundance. Two years ago, some investigations were made in the deep 

 waters of Lake kSuperior and Lake ^Michigan, in which the dredge and 

 other improved apparatus were employed. To the surprise of the gen- 

 tlemen engaged in this work, this very shrimp was found at a depth 

 below 25 fathoms. It there constitutes, to a great extent, the food of 

 the \\hite-fish being very generally found in its stomach. 



The fact that che gastric juice of fishes continues to act after their 

 death is one reason why so little is found in the stomachs of those 

 which feed on minute, soft-bodied animals, if not examined immediately 

 after t^ey are caught. After a few hours, nothing but a microscopic 

 examination will tell what a fish feeds upon. 



The occurrence of this small crustacean in the larger lakes is the 

 guarantee that the salmon will thrive there. Anadroraous fish placed in 

 a river are led by their instinct to follow the current down to some 

 large body of water. When they get down from the riv^ers to the lakes, 

 they find this large body of water, and in Lake Superior or other large 

 lakes they are practically in the ocean. Thej^ do not know the road 

 through the waters except by a current, or else by a route which they 

 have previously traversed. Their instinct teaches them to go down the 

 river to the sea, and to return ; and they cannot get into the wrong 

 river any more than a man will mistake his own house. 



Fishermen at Halifax had told him during the past summer that it is 

 very common for salmon, after they have spawned, to go into the lakes 

 and spend the winter there. They are perfectly ravenous, and can be 

 taken easily. They go down in the spring to the sea, and back again 

 at the proper spawning-season. 



Many white-fish have precisely the same habit; in certain fresh- water 

 lakes they run up into the streams in summer, and winter in the lakes. 

 In Hudson's Ba}', the white-fish winter, and are taken there in immense 

 numbers. They run up from the bay into the rivers exactly as they do 

 in some of the rivers of Lake Superior or Lake Michigan. Therefore 

 there is every reason to believe that the great lakes can be stocked with 

 salmon to any desirable extent. 



Dr. Goldsmith said that during the time when negotiations were 

 going on between the British government and our own, he made an 

 eftbrt to secure legislation to permit the passage of fish up the Saint Law- 

 rence, which is the great artery by which our lakes must be supplied 

 with sea-going fish ; and the matter being referred to the Secretary of 

 State, it was brought to the attention of the Canadian authorities, who 

 assured him (Dr. G.) that it was onlv necessary for those interested in 

 S. Mis. 74 49 



