22 THE SALMON FISHERIES. 
listlessly about in the deep pools, awaiting a flood to carry 
them down. The dead fish would naturally float and 
attract attention, and the very fact of thousands of kelts 
being crowded above an impassable dam would be likely 
—to judge from our own experience in this country—to 
engender disease and hasten death. 
Mr. Stone says nothing as to the length of time during 
which the dam built by him across the river remained a 
complete barrier to the fish. His spawn-collecting opera- 
tions usually occupied about a month or less. Whether he 
destroyed the dam, or made an opening through it for the 
later fish to pass, or left it to be washed away by the 
floods, he does not say. But, whatever the facts in regard 
to the fish that had passed above the dam, they are no 
proof of what happened to the fish that were kept below it ; 
and Mr. Stone found that when they became disheartened 
by their repeated attempts to pass it, they dropped down- 
stream to the spawning beds below, so that it became 
impossible to trace their after movements. 
On the important question of the size of the fish, 
however, Mr. Stone’s experience on the McLeod River is 
at variance with that of Mr. Anderson on the Fraser. 
He asserts, for instance, when speaking of his spawning 
operations in the autumn of the year 1873, that “at 
times the salmon caught would be mostly males, at 
other times mostly females, and at other times nearly 
all grilse.... The weight of the salmon caught (in- 
cluding grilse) varied from less than half-a-pound to 
29 lbs.” As the spot at which these fish were captured 
was over 150 miles from the sea, there can be no doubt 
that they were all going up to spawn; and if we are to 
accept the statement that they would all die after spawn- 
ing once, we must account for the fact on the hypothesis, 
