dying in large numbers. This epidemic lasted until the 

 middle of May of this year. It then began to diminish ; 

 salmon could be watched recovering from the disease, and 

 by the beginning of June it had almost disappeared, 

 although the river was very low. In the previous year 

 freshes had no effect in diminishing the disease. 



I attach great weight to these careful and precise obser- 

 vations, and I shall have something to say about their 

 bearing by-and-by. They prove conclusively that, even while 

 the fish remain in fresh water, diseased salmon may com- 

 pletely recover, and they would leave no doubt in my 

 mind that the epidemic has no necessary connection either 

 with pollution or with overcrowding, even if this point had 

 not been settled already. Mr. Byers, formerly surveyor in 

 the Government service in British Columbia, told the Com- 

 missioners who inquired into the salmon disease in 1880, 

 that he was on the Harrison River, one of the tributaries of 

 the Fraser, in that dependency in 1861, and that he there 

 saw thousands of diseased salmon. The disease has also 

 been observed in the Castries rivers in Siberia. Yet neither 

 in British Columbia nor in Siberia can the rivers be much 

 troubled with pollution from high farming or industrial 

 occupations. It is true that Mr. Byers attributes the 

 disease to overstocking, but this is a mere guess ; and it is 

 negatived by the facts adduced before the same Commis- 

 sioners by Sir James Maitland, who kept 12,000 Lochleven 

 trout, varying in weight from half a pound to five pounds, 

 from November to March 1878-9, in three ponds, each 

 about 300 feet long, 45 feet wide, and 6 to 13 feet deep, 

 without loss of more than I per 1000. Another very sin- 

 gular fact which has been brought to light by observation, 

 though it certainly sounds paradoxical, is that even a violent 

 epidemic of disease, continued for several years, does not 



