THE SALMON AND ITS MIGRATIONS 191 



may be. As an example and comparison we will 

 take the Trinity River. The average catch dur- 

 ing the year it was netted by the Hudson Bay Co. 

 was seventy-five tierces, equal to 33,750 pounds 

 of fresh salmon. Nine nets in that vicinity have 

 during the past ten years, given an average yield 

 of over 50,000 pounds per anum. Comparison 

 with other rivers are nearly all similar, thus 

 showing over thirty per cent, increase in re- 

 turns. 



Of course this only applies to rivers of the 

 North Shore, in unsettled districts. Eivers west 

 of Quebec, and for some distance east are nearly 

 all denuded of salmon, and in those in which a 

 few still survive, it seems to be only a question of 

 time before they will share the same fate. There 

 the fish have not been exterminated by netting, 

 but driven from the streams by pollution of the 

 waters. No amount of restocking can ever res- 

 tore these rivers, unless one could rear a special 

 breed of salmon. 



Going further, still, and taking the returns 

 for the whole of the Province of Quebec for, say 

 ten years, we find that to-day they show an in- 

 crease of over thirty per cent. Here are the 

 figures in numbers: For the years 1896, '97, '98, 

 average total catch of salmon, 685,000 pounds; 

 for 1906, '07, '08, over one million pounds. Judg- 

 ing from these figures there seems to be no cause 



