43 



stream from a neighbouring group of lakes for the purpose of lilling the 

 channels to float logs down to the Ottawa River. A wire grating was 

 placed across the mouth of the main water-course, and a gate with a 

 wire screen was fixed in the dam to keep out the coarse fish abounding 

 in the drowned land and small lakes. These barriers were removed in 

 the fall by some mischievous hand, and the river below soon swarmed 

 with fish of prey. On one day in the following summer, Mr. Whitcher 

 informed me he killed some 40 pike in the sti'eam, and out of one fish 

 of about 6 lbs. weight he took 17 young salmon of small size. Finding 

 it impossible to rid the river of its new inhabitants, no attempt to 

 restock it has been made, but the fact was abundantly proved, that if 

 unmolested, salmon would live and thrive there. 



Mr. Whitcher has subsequently reared in small ponds on his own 

 grounds hei-e, California and Lake Ontario Salmon, and his experiments 

 with them ai"e of great interest. In three years they have grown from 

 1 to 10 inches, but he SMys they seem stunted in growth and their taste 

 is insipid. At certain times the instinct of migration is strong upon 

 thenij and they then constantly endeavour to escape from their enclo- 

 sures, by leaping out on to the grass on the side near-est the Rideau 

 River, the ponds being near the latter, as if they knew that their means 

 of migration lay in that quarter. 



Of the brook trout of this district, only one species is acknow- 

 ledged, but I am inclined to think that there are really several species 

 in existence hei*e if ]:»roperly examined ; yet a careful investigation 

 might show they are only varieties. The common trout (Salvelimcs Foiiti- 

 nalis) is well known in the lakes and small rapid streams of the Lauren- 

 tian Mountains ; its belly is a silvery white with vermillion dots and 

 yellow spots in the vicinity of the lateral line. Its flesh is white. The 

 red bellied trout [Salmo Erythrogaster) has its sides of a bronze colour 

 with rich salmon colour spots, intermixed with crimson, belly of 

 brilliant reddish orange, and its flesh an incarnate red. It has been 

 confounded with the ordinary brook trout and looked upon as only a 

 variety, but, independent of other considerations, DeKay says, the 

 regularity and brilliancy of its colours renders it proper to designate it 

 by a distinct specific name. Jordan considers it only a 

 variety. Various causes have been assigned for the great variety 



