DESTRUCTION OF SALMON. 203 



tories, drives them from a river if it do not 

 destroy them ; their great human enemies are 

 poachers, who make profit of the roe for bait ; 

 and the hundreds of spring anglers, who may each 

 take perhaps twenty or thirty dozen per day, 

 during April and May ; thus we see how different 

 a thing it is to estimate 48,012,200 fish on paper 

 and in fact ! alas ! where shall we catch a sal- 

 mon twenty years hence if things go on long, as at 

 present ? 



Herb. Why, in America : near Quebec (as I 

 understood), I heard of a gentleman* taking forty- 

 three salmon in two days, from twelve to fifteen 

 pounds each ! In this country it is impossible to 

 conceive a worse state of affairs, important as 

 salmon fisheries undoubtedly are to the well-being 

 of the country, both as regards the supply of 

 food they yield, and the employment they give 

 the poor. 



Theoph. But the fearful list is not yet com- 

 plete ; there is also one natural cause over which 

 we have no controul. Salmon sometimes run up 

 the smallest rivulets to spawn in the winter; so 

 much so, that a friend of mine, only last year, 

 detected a little boy with three salmon, of eight, 

 five, and four pounds, which he had taken in one 

 spot, with his hands, out of a little running ditch, 



* J. Strang, Esq. in the summer of 1839. 



