.liner lea It I'islicrics Society. 43 ' 



teaming with i;ra\liiig". Tlic character of the Manistee River, 

 with its clean, bandy bed and colorless water, together with the 

 peculiarly local and honie-lovino- instincts of g-rayling, made it a 

 favorite fishing groinid, affording at the same time unrivaled op- 

 portunities for the student of fish nature. Possessed of gregarious 

 habits, hundreds of grayling might have been counted in pools of 

 fiftv varils in extent. Aftep five seasons' fishing with hook and 

 line, the hundreds of former times were represented by dozens. 



During the five years of depletion, natural reproducticju had 

 gone on uninterruptedly, the spawning period being covered by a 

 closed season, and logging operatioris not yet begun — here was 

 the chance of a lifetime to observe nature's powers of rehabilita- 

 tion. Results have i^roven conclusively that her best intentions 

 comprehend but little more than restoration of natural waste, 

 that e(|uilibrium may be maintained. Aboriginal man seems to 

 have been provided for in lier pristine plan, his simple needs 

 being simplv a factor in the maintenance of balance; that civilized 

 man. however, was an unreckoned force there is no rooiu for rea- 

 sonable doubt. 



The Au Sable River of to-day is an unparallel instance of suc- 

 cession of species. In the space of twenty-five years its original 

 stock of grayling — the accumulation of ages — has been prac- 

 ticall}' exterminated and the establishiuent of brook trout ac- 

 complished, to the extent that old-time repleteness has been at- 

 tained. Rehabilitation has been accomplished, artificially, in 

 thirteen years, dating from 1885. opposed by the same destructive 

 forces that were responsible for the swift depletion of the original 

 species. If man in various ways was responsible for the destruc- 

 tion of a species, he has also been an active agent in the estab- 

 lishment of its successor, to what extent may be left to inference. 



Experiences of twenty vears devoted to practical fish culture 

 leads me to deduce the following: That, even though fishing 

 operations on the Great Lakes were suspended al)solutely. re- 

 storation of partiallv exterminated species to their original num- 

 bers, through natural reprodu.ction. would occu])y ages. Moral: 

 let nature furnish eggs in the rough: let fishermen provide means 

 for the preservation of inuiiature fish. Hatchery products can do 

 the rest. 



A comparison of natural with artificial pro])agation of fishes, 

 as to results, may shed a ray of light on the efficacy or otherwise 

 of a closed spawning season for whitcfish and lake trout: the 

 enforcement of which nuist necessarily curtail the output of 

 hatcheries. 



