10 MUSEUM BULLETIN NO. 13. 



Amongst the anglers of the Gaspe coast there are many 

 complaints against the depredations of a few species of birds. 

 The salmon net-fishermen and other professionals are not insist- 

 ent, but the clubs are decided in their charges and have even 

 gone so far on many streams as to place bounties upon the heads 

 of the supposed worst offenders. Such bounties have been es- 

 tablished upon the St. Johns and the York rivers according to the 

 following scale : Cormorants, sheldrakes, kingfishers, and divers 

 25 cents per head, and for a kingfisher's nest with female bird 

 $2. 



Elsewhere than about Gaspe I have heard few complaints 

 against cormorants, but in this locality they are popularly re- 

 garded as the worst enemy of salmon and application has been 

 made to have these bounties supplemented by a Provincial 

 grant. 



Evidence apparently against the cormorants is not wanting. 

 Knowing that all the salmon smolt must pass through theestuarine 

 mouths of the rivers to the sea and again repass them when as- 

 cending as grilse the presence of numbers of fish-eating birds of 

 itself is disturbing enough, but when one hears from reliable 

 sources that some twenty-seven fingerling salmon (parr) have been 

 taken from the crop of one cormorant, the evidence superficially 

 looks alarming. Investigation, however, shows that these con- 

 stantly reported tales are variants of a few cases so often repeated 

 as to greatly exaggerate their importance and hide their excep- 

 tional character. But all cormorants found on the upper reaches 

 of the rivers must, until other evidence is forthcoming, be assured 

 to eat salmon, as they and a few trout are practically the only 

 fish the waters contain. 



According to our experience, supported by the evidence of 

 various experienced rivermen, guides, guardians, and fishermen, 

 cormorants rarely ascend the rivers beyond tide influence, but 

 congregate in the shallow saline water of the estuarine mouths. 

 From various frequenters of the rivers we heard that one rarely 

 sees more than half a dozen cormorants within the river proper 

 throughout the year. During our stay we saw and took one bird 

 barely above tidal influence and later obtained two more shot 

 by others in the same vicinity. Our bird we knew by observation 



