'236 THE LABEADOR PENINSULA. chap. xxxv. 



THE SALJklON FISHERY. 



No description of fisli has been so much neglected or 

 abused in British America as the sahnon. ^It is only 

 within the last three or four years that the Government of 

 Canada has directed attention to the preservation of this 

 noble fish in the vast number of streams which flow into 

 Canadian waters on the Eiver and Gulf of St. Lawrence. 

 There are seventy tidal rivers in Canada which are well 

 known to be frequented by salmon. In many of these 

 great numbers of fish have been taken with the net for 

 many years past ; and although some of them are now 

 visited by a far less number of fish than formerly, yet, 

 judging from experience, the run of salmon would rapidly 

 increase if the excellent regulations now established by 

 the Canadian Government were faithfuUy carried out. 



Twenty-five or thirty years ago every stream tributary to the 

 St. Lawrence, from Niagara to Labrador on the north side, and 

 to Gfaspe Basin on the south, abounded with salmon. At the 

 present moment, with the exception of a few, as the Jacques 

 Cartier, there is not one to be found in an};- river between the 

 falls of Niagara and the city of Quebec. This deplorable de- 

 crease in a natural production of great value has arisen from 

 two causes: — 1st, the natural disposition of uncivilised men to 

 destroy at all times and at all seasons whatever has life and is 

 fit for food ; and 2nd, the neglect of those persons who have 

 constructed mill-dams to attach to them slides or chutes, by 

 ascending which the fish could pass onwards to their spawning 

 beds in the interior.* 



* The Decrease, Restoration, and Preservation of Sahnon in Canada. 

 By the Eev. William Agar Adamson, D.C.L. This valuable paper was 

 first prepared for the Canadian Institute ; it has been republished as a ver}- 

 outertainiug worli entitled ' Sahnon Fishing iu Canada, bv a Resident.' 



