RESTOCKING RIVERS. 85 



they become Sinalts, should not return as Grilse to the scenes of 

 their childhood. 



Nor do I see an}- good reason why they should not continue 

 to breed, and to frequent any river into which they should be 

 so introduced. 



The cause of their desertion of these rivers is inexplicable. 

 It has been attributed to steamboats, but that is ideal ; for the 

 Tay, the Tweed, and the Clyde, and half a dozen other English 

 and Scottish rivers, which still abound in Salmon, are harassed 

 by more steamboats, hourly, than are the Kennebeck and 

 Penobscot now, or than were the Hudson and Connecticut at 

 the time when the Salmon forsook them, daily. 



I think it, myself, far more probable that they were poisoned, 

 and driven from the head-waters and tributaries, in which they 

 were wont to spawn, by the sawdust, especially the hemlock ; 

 and that the stock which were used to run up these estuaries 

 having become extinct, the traditional instinct is lost, and there 

 are no fish left which know the way to our waters. 



If this be a true reason — and, the known instinct of the 

 animal considered, it is as plausible a conjecture as any other — 

 it is certain that many rivers, whose waters a few years ago ran 

 turbid with sawdust, and whose every tributary resounded to 

 the clack of the saw-mill, now again run as limpid as ever, and 

 are guiltless of saws, as well as of the timber to supplj^ them. 



I contend, therefore, that there is no analogy against, but 

 much in favour of, the possibility of re-stocking the southern 

 rivers of the Middle States with Salmon, which should return, 

 and breed in them, year after year. 



Nor, looking to the vast profit directly arising from such 



