30 The Atlantic Salmon 



not rise freely until they reached the head waters, 

 where a great many were killed. On the Meta- 

 pedia River, where the fish are large, many of 

 them go a long distance up and spawn in small 

 streams. A former owner, acting on a peculiar 

 theory of his, had a dam built thirty or thirty-five 

 miles up the river to stop the further passage of 

 the fish, and thus improve his own angling, at the 

 same time forcing the fish to spawn in the lower 

 stretches. The result of this was that in three 

 years there were no fish in this magnificent river, 

 and in the first year the angling began to decline. 

 When the river came into the possession of the 

 Ristigouche Salmon Club the dam was removed, 

 and the salmon allowed their old freedom of 

 action, but it took five or six years to get back 

 the river to anything like its old form. It seemed 

 as though, after two or three seasons' futile at- 

 tempts to reach their old spawning grounds, the 

 remnant of the salmon abandoned effort and went 

 elsewhere. 



A well-known and observing angler, writing me 

 from Edinburgh, says anent salmon returning to 

 their native rivers : " Fourteen years ago I rented 

 the Mount Clairy fishings on the Deveron, which 

 usually yielded about one hundred salmon to the 



