1866.] NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 25 



grounds. Formerly salmon abounded in the rivers to the west of 

 Montreal, and formed a staple article of food for the inhabitants ; 

 but they had long since ceased to exist, and for many years none 

 had been seen. One solitary fish found its way to the St. Regis 

 river last season, but the Indians who killed it were unable to tell 

 its name and looked on it as a sort of turns naturce. He objected 

 to any fixed obstacles being placed in the way of fish going to their 

 spawning grounds, and said that since these had been abolished in 

 England, salmon could there be purchased cheaper than in Canada. 

 As to using seines for catching fish, they were used in England, 

 and our Canadian rivers were much better adapted to their use. 

 One river that he knew, the Jacques C artier, in which salmon had 

 been exterminated, now abounded with these fish, the result of care 

 and of allowing a free passage to the spawning ground ; the Murray 

 river too formerly abounded with salmon, but they had been ex- 

 terminated by brush-weirs, and now a single fish was the season's 

 catch. The owners of brush-weirs at Murray Bay had told him 

 that formerly they took herrings by means of them in such abun- 

 dance that they had to use them for manure ; while now they got 

 very few herrings or fish of any kind, a result not to be wondered 

 at as he had found these weirs full of herring-fry and other small 

 fish ; in one brush-weir upwards of five thousand smolts had been 

 killed in one tide. 



Mr. Drummond maintained that the only question at issue was 

 how to catch for the market, at the smallest expense, the greatest 

 weight of salmon, making sure to leave in the rivers, as well an ample 

 supply for keeping up the breed as all the immature fish. He argued 

 that these ends could most easily be attained by means of fixed- 

 engines in the salt-water (where seining was practically out of the 

 question), and had in fact, to a considerable extent, been already 

 attained by the Canadian nets hitherto used, inasmuch as the 

 numbers of fish in our salmon-rivers had of late years vastly 

 increased. He asserted that the British modes of fishing were 

 much more destructive than the Canadian, and quoted statements 

 to prove that salmon had not increased in the United Kingdom 

 under recent legislation and that they were very much dearer there 

 than here. 



Dr. Dawson said that the chief objection which he saw could 

 be urged against brush-weirs was their inefficiency ; they captured 

 too few fish, and were rude clumsy implements which fish soon 

 learned to avoid. He thought a good deal of misapprehension 



