500 IMPORTANCE OF NETS. 



in spirits, to a proper consistency black wax is perhaps 

 the most convenient colour; a little put over tyings 

 with a feather is a great preservative. 



Nets for taking fish in lakes and streams, though not 

 a very sporting style of angling, often prove of the 

 highest value to travellers in wild countries, as they can 

 be set in the evening and left to do their work while the 

 party is at rest. There are two useful kinds of nets > 

 one with a large mesh for catching full-sized fish, and 

 the other with a fine mesh for small fish, which come 

 in useful for bait and other purposes. A net of this 

 latter kind set at the outfall of a small stream where 

 it joins a lake or large river, will often do good work 

 in this way. In the Hudson Bay Territory, in the olden 

 day, all parties of voyageurs on the great rivers and 

 trade routes were provided with nets, and at most of 

 the Hudson Bay forts the supply of fish at all seasons 

 proved a most important item. At many of these 

 places a plentiful supply of nets were a necessary 

 article of store, as the well-known "white fish" (Core- 

 gonus Albus) of itself alone furnished the residents in 

 many cases with an inexhaustible supply of excellent 

 food, when the migratory game birds and animals had 

 moved off to other regions. * 



Nets are always " engines" (as the game laws call 

 them) of the utmost service, wherever permanent waters 

 of considerable size exist. They require of course to 



* See Narrative of an Arctic Land Expedition to the Great Fish 

 River and along the Shores of the Arctic Ocean, 1833 1835, by Cap- 

 tain Back, published 1836, Vol. i., p. 519. Captain Back goes so far 

 as to say that it is through the abundant supply yielded by the fisheries 

 of this one celebrated fish (which is found in every piece of fresh water 

 between Lake Erie and the Arctic Sea) that the fur trade is carried on. 



