45 



activity of brook trout, and afford but little sport wlien hooked. 

 Spearing in autumn, when the fish come in the shallows to spawn, 

 threatened not many years ago to extirpate them entirely in some of 

 the more accessible lakes, and I have known of parties going up to 

 Whitefish Lake on the Lievre for that purpose, who returned with 

 several barrels as their spoil. Thanks, however, to the watchful 

 supervision of the Government, spearing is an evil of the past, or at 

 least nearly so, and thei'e is a prospect of our lakes again becoming 

 productive. 



The White&sh(Coregonus Cliqjeiformis) is found in many of the lakes 

 of the Gatineaii and Lievre district, where it is both netted and speared, 

 as it rarely takes a bait, and I have never heard of an instance of the 

 true whitefish being thus taken. Its food consists principally of aquatic 

 algoe and small molluscs. I have found remains of the cyclas in the 

 stomachs of some I have examined. This fish is too often confounded 

 in name with a fish caught abundantly in the Ottawa in summer, but 

 which is really another genvis, being a fresh water herring, or moon-eye, 

 [Hyodon Tergisus). This fish aflfords excellent sport in July and 

 August, taking a grasshopper and worm eagerly. It is very similar to, 

 but smaller than the lake herring {^Hyodon Alosoides), which is one of 

 the fish of this district, and generally called by the ordinary name of 

 Whitefish. 



The Shad (Alosa Sapidissima) is another fish which is of 

 doubtful question as coming up the Ottawa above Grenville. 

 They are well known as frequenting the Ottawa up to Carillon, 

 but above that only a stray fish once in a way probably 

 ascends, and the beds of sawdust which extend everywhere above 

 Carillon would hardly invite these delicate fish to pursue their wander- 

 ings any further. 1 find the shad recorded in lists of 1860, but then 

 there was no limit assigned to these lists, simply "fishes of the Ottawa." 



We now come to one of the most curious fish peculiar to the waters 

 of this continent, the Gar-fish {Lepidosteus Osseus). It is 

 found in the Ottawa River and its tributaries, although far more 

 abundantly in the former than the latter. It is the best living exempli- 

 fication of the old fossil bony scaled ganoids of Agassiz — fishes clad in 

 a complete suit of enamelled armour, which, beginning in the Devonian 



