180 American Fisheries Society 



the west that are of incalculable value. He sacrificed his life 

 when making tests with a new form of net, suitable he thought 

 for the requirements of the Indians, and less wasteful than the 

 devices they used. Exposure in inclement weather, during 

 this work, brought about his death, but from 1885 to 1896 he 

 did splendid service. I should like to mention Inspector Ber- 

 tram, the able officer who had charge of the Cape Breton fish- 

 eries from 1884 until his death in 1909; and I cannot omit In- 

 spector John McNab, New Westminister, British Columbia, 

 under whom in the early "nineties" the vast fisheries of the 

 Pacific Province progressed from small beginnings. He was 

 the only officer who knew the northern waters. I had the 

 privilege of visiting with him in 1894 the Nass River and its 

 tributaries. Work Canal, Prince Rupert, then called Tux Inlet, 

 Metlakahtla, Rivers Inlet, and some of the upper Fraser waters, 

 where I saw vast schools of salmon spawning. John McNab 

 was the only fisheries official (excepting Officer William Rox- 

 burgh, a native of Glasgow, Scotland, who knew the Skeena 

 and interior waters), to whom the whole coast, and most of 

 the headwaters, were familiar. McNab was born in Nova 

 Scotia, and was one of the "Forty-Niners" who prospected 

 for gold in the wild northern regions, where his knowledge 

 proved of inestimable value later to the fisheries service. It 

 is impossible to estimate too highly the great work such offi- 

 cers did in the early days of fishery development. 



Captain J. T. Walbran. — In much of this valuable work 

 Capt. J. T. Walbran, of the cruiser Quadra, gave his skilled 

 aid for many years. Never was there an abler, more scholarly, 

 and enthusiastic departmental official than Walbran. I made 

 several cruises with him along little-visited parts of the Pacific 

 coast, making plankton and bottom catches with naturalist's 

 nets and accumulating much valuable biological and fishery 

 material, and in all my work Captain Walbran was assiduous 

 in his help and advice. He had a distinguished brother, Canon 

 Walbran, of Ripon Cathedral, England. Both brothers had 

 antiquarian and historical tastes of uncommon character, 



