PLEASURES OF ANGLING. 21 



past sixty years furnished a melancholy lesson of 

 the danger of neglect. For within that period, 

 every stream, as far south as the river Credit (at 

 the head of lake Ontario) and on both sides of 

 that lake, lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence 

 river down to Quebec, were as prolific in salmon 

 as any of the rivers on the gulf or on the coast of 

 Labrador. I myself remember when canoe-loads 

 of salmon were brought to Toronto from the first- 

 named river by the Indians and sold for a penny 

 a pound ; and it is within the recollection of the 

 " oldest inhabitants " of Sodus, Oswego, Kingston, 

 Prescott and Plattsburg, when salmon in the rivers 

 in their neighborhood were quite as plenty as 

 salmon trout, white fish or black bass now are. 

 But now, a salmon in any of the waters south of 

 Montreal is as rare as a Spanish mackerel north of 

 the Highlands in the Hudson. 



This depletion has resulted from three causes : 

 1. The destruction of the fish by net and spear ; 2. 

 The establishment of saw-mills and factories ; and 

 3. The erection of dams which prevent the fish 

 from resorting to their natural breeding places. 

 Either of these causes would, in time, perform the 

 work of extermination ; but the latter is the most 

 effective and the least excusable, because un- 

 necessary. A very little attention to the con- 

 struction of " ladders " to enable the fish to reach 



