GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION AND HABITATS. 107 



Quoting Dr. Low, Chambers (1896, p. 115-117) writes concerning this fish in Labra- 

 dor: 'This fish is found in many of the streams that flow from the table-land of the 

 interior, and is not confined to any particular watershed, as it Uves in the northern, 

 eastern, and southern rivers. ... On the eastern watershed we frequently caught land- 

 locked salmon on both branches of the Hamilton River, above Grand Falls, where the 

 sheer fall is three hundred feet. Salmon only ascend the Hamilton River twenty miles 

 above its mouth, where they are stopped by a small fall, which is impassible on account 

 of the peculiar manner in which the water passes over a ledge of rock. 



'Ouananiche were taken in the great Lake Michikamou, at the head of the Northwest 

 River, which empties into Hamilton Inlet. . . . No fish were taken in the Romaine 

 River, flowing into the St. Lawrence, but my guide informed me that salmon occurred 

 at the head of that stream and of Natashquan River. 



'I do not know what the theories are regarding the occurrence of these fish in inland 

 waters, but of one thing I am certain and that is, they have never ascended from the sea 

 to their present haunts since the close of the glacial period, and I hardly think the con- 

 ditions were favorable then. My idea is that the salmon was originally a fresh-water 

 fish, and acquired the sea-going habit. 



'I have never heard of ouananiche in the waters of the western slope of Labrador — 

 that is, in the rivers flowing into Hudson Bay.' 



Halkett (1913, p. 52) refers to the distribution of 'Salmo solar ouananiche' thus: 

 'Saguenay River and Lake St. John regions, and lakes and rivers northward to the 

 Ungava region, and eastward to Labrador: occurs also in lakes of Newfoundland — such 

 as Red Indian and Terra Nova Lakes, and lakes at the head of Gambo River.' He Usts 

 'Salmo salar sebego' as in 'Certain lakes of New Brunswick, such as Loch Lomond and 

 Sciff and Musquash Lakes.' 



Formerly salmon inhabited Lake Ontario and Lake Champlain. The question whether 

 these fish were permanent residents of the lakes or ascended from the sea each season 

 was a much discussed question in former years, but it was never decisively settled. The 

 preponderance of evidence, or perhaps it should be said, of opinion, was that they were 

 permanent residents and should be classed as 'landlocked salmon.' Inasmuch as these 

 fish are now extinct in both of those lakes, the question can be settled, if settled at aU, 

 only by weighing the evidence and considering such stated grounds for the opinions as 

 may be available. 



According to Evermann and Kendall (19026, p. 209) the fish fauna of Lake Ontario 

 comprised 73 species, including the salmon which they Ust as a Salmo salar. 



Some 50 years ago, Watson (1876, p. 532) writing of salmon in Lake Champlain says: 

 'When the writer first became a resident of the district in 1824, many of the original 

 settlers of the country were yet living, who were men of respectabiUty and position, 

 and of undoubted veracity. Their tales of the abundance of the salmon which prevailed 

 at that time demanded for their acceptance an exercise of the strongest faith in the truth- 

 fulness of the narrators.' One account was that 1500 pounds of salmon were taken by a 

 single haul of the seine, near Port Kendall in the year 1823. It also stated that in 1838 



