148 ANIMAL BIOLOGY 



usually came from the Connecticut, but of late years from 

 the Kennebec, covered with ice. Rev. David Dudley Field, 

 writing in 1819, states that salmon had scarcely been seen 

 in the Connecticut for fifteen or twenty years. The cir- 

 cumstances of their extermination in the Connecticut are 

 well known, and the same story, with names and dates 

 changed, serves equally well for other rivers. 



" In 1798 a corporation, known as the ' Upper Locks and 

 Canal Company,' built a dam sixteen feet high at Millers 

 River, 100 miles from the mouth of the Connecticut. For 

 two or three years fish were seen in great abundance below 

 the dam, and for perhaps ten years they continued to appear, 

 vainly striving to reach their spawning grounds; but soon 

 the work of the extermination was complete. When, in 

 1872, a solitary salmon made its appearance, the Saybrook 

 fishermen did not know what it was." 1 



The Pacific salmon is rapidly disappearing also. " Natu- 

 rally the salmon millions of the Pacific streams early attracted 

 the attention and aroused the avarice of men who exploit 

 the products of nature for gain. As usual, the bountiful 

 supply begat prodigality and wastefulness. The streams 

 nearest to San Francisco were the first to be depleted by 

 reckless overfishing. . . . Regarding the conditions that 

 in 1901 prevailed in Alaska, the following notes . . . are of 

 interest : ' The salmon of Alaska, numerous as they have 

 been and in some places still are, are being destroyed at so 

 wholesale a rate that before long the canning industry must 

 cease to be profitable, and the capital put into the canneries 

 must cease to yield any return.' 



" The destruction of the salmon comes about through the 

 competition between the various canneries. Their greed is 

 so great that each strives to catch all the fish there are, and 



1 Jordan and Evermann's "American Food and Game Fishes." 



