78 THE HISTORY AND HABITS OF THE SALMON. 



eddies, where they can find a resting-place, and where it 

 is well known that salmon never spawn. In artificial 

 spawning we may find the ova addled from the effects of 

 alluvial gatherings over the place where we have deposited 

 the seed ; but that is entirely owing to our having selected 

 a wrong spot in the river a place where the stream 

 never had the required velocity. But in natural spawning 

 there has never occurred any thing of the kind, for nature 

 has taught the fish the exact spots wherein to deposit 

 their seed ; and in these selected spots seldom or ever has 

 their lahour been found in vain, for when once the seed is 

 fairly covered up, nothing injures it, unless the banks, beds, 

 and all, be carried away by some flood or similar accident, 

 which often happens when a flood overtakes late breeders 

 with their beds half finished. In the second place, natural 

 breeding must, in all cases, be preferable to artificial breed- 

 ing, for in the former a right selection of the necessary 

 spot is made, when in the latter, were the process to be- 

 come general, I fear that, in many cases, very unsuitable 

 spots would be selected. And how could we expect it 

 otherwise, when we see naturalists (?) of the present age 

 tell us that salmon spawn in pools ? Allowing artificial 

 breeding to become general, by what process could the 

 seed be advantageously secured ? We are aware that it is 

 useless to take salmon, for that purpose, from any place 

 but off the spawning beds ; and even then we have only 

 an eighth or a tenth part of the ova in that ripe state that 

 will ensure production. Therefore, by extracting such a 

 quantity of useless seed from the fish, it would undoubt- 

 edly be making bad worse. Artificial breeding is a practi- 

 cable process, whereby we can stock fishless and barren 

 rivers, and make them productive ; but in no other case 

 would I prefer artificial to natural spawning. Only give 

 us natural laws for the right management and protection 

 of the salmon, and with these no natural cause can prevent 

 the salmon from increasing to the ratio of the fifteenth 

 century." 



