VI PREFACE. 



selected and impregnated and placed in such box, 

 nature solely does the rest. But after incubation 

 is over, the difficulties to be encountered by the 

 artificial breeder have just only begun : everything 

 previous to that is perfectly simple and easily gone 

 about. 



I accounted for the degenerate state of salmon 

 rivers now to what they were formerly by point- 

 ing out the great care and protection they enjoyed 

 in days of yore, and the inattention and careless- 

 ness exercised over them by all parties now ; how 

 they have been left entirely at the mercy of the 

 robber and plunderer ; how the breeding fish are 

 killed and massacred by poachers ; and how they 

 are caught at unreasonable times by various fix- 

 tures and devices, under the sanction of law ; and 

 also that the present existing fishery law is not 

 at all adapted to the circumstances and habits of 

 the salmon, but quite the contrary, and that, under 

 the influence of that law, no river whatever can 

 prosper, but all must retrograde, as has been evi- 

 dently seen for the last twenty-five years. The 

 Legislature has been often appealed to, so as to 

 get the law made suitable to the habits of the 

 fish ; but all appeals have hitherto proved fruit- 

 less. And for some of the reasons why the pre- 

 sent state of matters is allowed to remain, we 



