190 THE SALMON AND ITS MIGRATIONS 



minks. I once watched and shot a mink, the 

 winner in a fight with a ten pound salmon. Then 

 last, but not least, the trout and pike, &c., of 

 which more anon. Much could be done for the 

 better protection of the fish from many of the 

 above enemies. 



]Vr* Salmon Bm*asing ? Old Hudson Bay 

 employees and fishermen, whom I have met, were, 

 whenever salmon was discussed, found of telling 

 of the immense quantities that were netted in the 

 good old days, citing in support of this the hun- 

 dreds of tierces that were salted or cured at this 

 or that river at the time, and of the comparatively 

 small numbers seen in the same rivers to-day. 

 Previous to the cession of the King's Post and 

 the passing of the Fishery Act in 1858 and 1859, 

 the Hudson Bay Company had the monopoly of 

 all the fisheries or nearly all on the North 

 Shore of the St. Lawrence, but only the best or 

 most convenient were netted and those only inside 

 the rivers or estuaries. In nearly all of them 

 barrier nets were set, i.e , nets extending from 

 one bank to the other ; in some cases, two or three 

 in the same river. Later on, however, when it 

 was decreed illegal to fish in the rivers, stations 

 were selected along the sea shore, generally at the 

 extremity of a point. In many places there are 

 a dozen or more of these nets within a few miles of 

 a river, thus dividing the former yield of that 

 stream into a dozen or more portions, as the case 



