26 REPOKT OF ONTAKIO GAME No. 52 



Scientific Research. 



Attention has already been called to the fact that scientific knowl- 

 edge of the lives and habits of the fishes is all too meagre, and in the 

 preceding paragraph the necessity was established for proper statistical 

 research in order to discover the extent of the fish hatchery operations 

 which it is advisable for the Province to undertake. It is obvious that 

 to solve problems affecting the supply of wild animal life, the funda- 

 mental necessity is an accurate knowledge of the life, habits and environ- 

 ment of the animal in question, be it fowl, beast or fish, and this neces- 

 sity cannot but be enhanced when considerable expenditures of public 

 moneys are contemplated, or actually being born, in the effort to find a 

 satisfactory solution. Most particularly so must this be the case with 

 the fisheries, for the diflficulties, which from the outset beset the path of 

 the scientific investigator, indicate only too well that his task can be 

 none too easy, and that, therefore, immediate and continued efforts in 

 this direction are indispensable if the desired results are ever to be 

 obtained. 



The direction such investigation should take is, at first glance, ap- 

 parent in so far as the purely mechanical end of the fish hatchery opera- 

 tions is concerned, and to the extent, also, of methodical statistical 

 research and the study of the life histories of the various fishes. But 

 the field is by no means limited to these. Fishes, like all the other 

 creatures possessed of life, not only require food to support that life, 

 but are subject to a multitude of scourges and ailments which may not 

 only affect their continued existence, or their reproductive powers, but 

 may seriously impair their value as food for man, to the extent, even, of 

 rendering them positively harmful to him. 



Thus it will be seen that the field of scientific knowledge must not 

 only embrace the care of the eggs or fry under its immediate charge, but 

 must also grapple with the lives of the fish hatched, after they have been 

 placed in the waters, in order to assist them against the ravages of dis- 

 ease, by attacking and if possible destroying its causes, and also to 

 secure for them an abundance of proper food at all stages of their exist- 

 ence, which, in its turn, must imply an accurate appreciation of sub- 

 marine conditions and an intimate acquaintance with the lives of an 

 infinity of aquatic plants, minute animals and insects. 



There remains also to be determined the relation of fishes to each 

 other. Some fishes are known to be cannibalistic, and predaceous in 

 regard to other forms of fish life; while other fishes, sucli as the carp, 

 are accused of devouring the immature of more valuable species, 

 although scientific support to such accusations has never been forth- 

 coming. Some fishes again, such as the whitefish, which subsist chiefly 

 on vegetable matter, such as is to be obtained on the bottoms of the 

 areas vvhich they inhabit, on insects and on the lesser varieties of mollusc 

 and crustacean life, are known to be harmless; while others, such as the 

 sturgeon and sucker, are accused of destructive spawn-eating propen- 



