90 AMERICAN GAME FISHES. 



on this continent, under conditions that seem more favorable. 

 Trout and Salmon manage to exist in British streams bris- 

 tling with nets, weirs, dams, and all manner of destructive 

 engines, and polluted by sewage and the refuse of manufact- 

 ories, but in America, once the country is cultivated, they van- 

 ish. The preservation of their spawning-grounds in the nat- 

 ural condition, if they can get there at all, is probably the 

 reason in the former case. In England the change in 

 rain-fall, due to the disappearance of forests, can never have 

 been so great as it is in America. 



The Lake St. John and Saguenay fish average a little 

 over two and one-half pounds. Four-pound fish were 

 numerous enough a few years ago, but anything over that 

 size is large, and only occasionally will a six-pounder 

 be found. Out of many thousands I have seen but one 

 seven-pound fish; it was twenty-seven inches in length, 

 and a very lank specimen. If properly filled out, it 

 would have weighed nine or ten pounds. This solitary in- 

 stance gives one some faith in the stories of the large size of 

 the Wananishe when the region was first settled, forty years 

 ago. Occasionally very large ones are seen feeding by them- 

 selves, but they are extremely wary, and there is no authentic 

 record of one above seven pounds, though the late Senator 

 David Price, of Chicoutimi, is said to have caught one of 

 eleven pounds in weight. 



I did not get enough of the Labrador fish to establish an 

 average, but I imagine them to be large, because of the abun- 

 dance of food, great area of the lakes, and freedom from dis- 

 turbance. My specimens varied from a quarter of a pound to 

 six and one-half pounds. The Indians said much larger fish 

 were plentiful far up the rivers, but we all know how that is 

 ourselves. 



As my own observations have been chiefly of the Wananishe, 

 I will confine myself to the appearance and dimensions of this 

 variety, which agree very closely with those of the Schoodic 



