WINTER TALKS ON SUMMER PASTIMES. 63 



be attributed the then "paucity" of the river as he found it. 

 Soon afterward, spearing even by Indians was strictly pro- 

 hibited, and as a result the river became in a few years the 

 most noted on the continent ; and it will so continue, unless 

 the recent riparian rights decision shall work as mischiev- 

 ously as many believe it will. 



I made my first visit to the Cascapedia in '74. At that 

 time the stringent fishery laws including the prohibition 

 against spearing by Indians as well as by all others had 

 been in force for eight or ten years, and, however it may 

 have been before, it certainly was not then true that "the 

 river as regards salmon was a myth." Its waters were 

 teeming with the lordly fish, and their capture afforded all 

 the excitement and sport any reasonable angler could desire. 

 Whether at the "Sheddon Pool," ten miles, or at "the 

 Forks," fifty miles abo\e the mouth of the river, fish were 

 found in satisfactory numbers. But I had other proof than 

 that furnished by Col. Dashwood that it had not always 

 been so. Mr. Best, an intelligent habitant, who occupies the 

 last house on the river (ten miles from the bay), and who 

 has lived on the river for thirty years, told me that the fish 

 were never so abundant as they then were ; that they were 

 far more numerous than ten years previously, and were in- 

 creasing in numbers every year. In asking him how he 

 accounted for the increase, his response was, "A strict 

 guardianship and no more spearing by anybody." 



But something more is necessary to keep up the supply, 

 even though the recent riparian decision shall not work the 

 mischief apprehended. The nets at the mouths of the 

 rivers should be raised for two or three instead of one day 

 in the week, to enable a larger number of fish to reach their 

 spawning beds. Now that every pool on every available 

 river is persistently fished, a much larger percentage of im- 

 migration is necessary to keep up the supply. If this is not 

 secured, even with the otherwise effective protective laws, 

 there will be inevitably a rapid diminution of salmon avail- 

 able to either seine or fly. 



But the sea-trout will remain, whatever may become of 



