APPENDIX. 315 



FISHING ON SUNDAY. 



ACT 8 VIOT. CAP. 45. 



ABSTRACT. 



SEC. III. Prohibits all fishing and shooting on Sundays, under 

 penalty not to exceed ten pounds, nor be less than five shillings and 

 costs. 



MR. WHITCHER'S REPORT. 



To THE HON. P. M. VAKKOUGHNET, 



Commissioner of Crown Lands, etc. 



Sir Your directions of the 17th of May last, honored me with 

 the service of inspecting and taking inventories of certain public 

 properties within the territory known as "The King's Posts," pre- 

 paratory to their resumption by government at the expiry of lease 

 with the Hon. Hudson's Bay Company. Obedient to which I have 

 made a personal and minute inspection of the several premises with 

 the view of ascertaining their actual state. The results of such exa- 

 mination, and other information affecting their delivery and accept- 

 ance, as between the Company and the Crown, form the subject of 

 various special communications and of a General Report already 



addressed to the Department. 



* * *.# * * * # 



The river Marguerite discharges a large volume of water, and in 

 the tidal portion affords tolerable salmon fishery. The lower course 

 is much broken by abrupt falls, and the fish not ascending the 

 stream to the more highly aerated waters of its sources, are ill- 

 shapen and coarse, and but of middling size. The spawning-places 

 swarmed with salmon fry. A trifling outlay in the construction of 

 stone basin steps would overcome the main obstacles to the ascent 

 of salmon along this stream. 



The river Pentecost is smaller, and has a high fall quite inaccessi- 

 ble to fish, some three miles from its mouth, where the bottom is 

 soft and muddy, and the shores clayey, which peculiarities probably 

 deter salmon from entering it. In the entrance, and for upward of 

 a league along the St. Lawrence bank westward, there is excellent 

 sea trout fishing for nets. The trout reach four pounds' weight, and 

 are well flavored. They take the artificial fly and bait with great 

 avidity at ebb and flow of the tide, particularly inside the embou- 

 chure. 



