- OUR FISHES AND THEIR ENEMIES—AMBROSE. 395 
source of wealth. I find by the Government Report of 1886 that 
for that year the fisheries of the Dominion reached a total value 
of $18,679,888. This was exclusive of the quantity of fish con- 
sumed by the Indian population in British Columbia, estimated at 
25,000,000 lbs., and also of the total yield of Manitoba and the 
North-West Territories, of which only approximate data were 
available, which would increase the total value to fully $22,000,- 
000. This was capable of great enlargement, yet we find the 
total value of the Dominion fisheries of 1888 was $17,418,570, 
shewing a shrinkage of no less than $1,260,718 in two years, 
largely attributable—as the Reports of Fish Overseers and In- 
spectors shew—to destructive agencies perfectly within the possi- 
bility of repression. 
I have alluded to the possibility of man’s selfish greed and folly 
neutralizing, to a large extent, the bounty of Providence by driv- 
ing fishes from their usual haunts, or greatly reducing in these 
localities the effect of their marvellous reproductive power. To 
make this clear, it will be necessary to speak of the habits of our 
migratory food-fishes. The Creator, Himself, has informed us 
that fish—like birds—were produced from the water, and I may 
observe that not only in point of fertility did their native ele- 
ment place them in advance of animals formed from the ground, 
but the great similarity in the habits of fishes and birds seems 
to be a further confirmatory proof of their kinship. All birds 
and most fishes are oviparous. Now, as there is no surer way 
+o change the ordinary habits of birds and cause them to forsake 
_their accustomed haunts than by disturbing them when laying 
their eggs,—so fishes, obeying the great law of reproduction, for- 
sake, after a time, the localities where this law of nature is sub- 
jected to persistent and destructive interruption. Were it not 
for the persistent denials of mill owners and other self-interested 
‘parties it would be unnecessary to state and insist on these self- 
evident preliminary facts. 
Again, fishes, like birds, resent by change of habitat any con- 
-tinuous interference with their food-supply, or on the other hand 
-can be tempted to leave their accustomed feeding grounds by 
more abundant bait at even more dangerous places. For example, 
