APPENDIX. 321 



fisheries ; though many well-informed persons think an addi- 

 tional month's " close time," as it is called, should have been 

 enforced, and that no salmon fishing of any kind should be per- 

 mitted until the 1st of March. Sir Humphry Davy, a high 

 authority on the subject, was of opinion that it should be for- 

 bidden until the 1st of May. 



Some legislative protection for salmon, appears to be much 

 required in the Canadas ; for although the number that run up 

 its chief river is still great, there can be no doubt that it is 

 sensibly diminishing. There are many causes operating to pro- 

 duce this effect. The salmon are killed at all times, in or out of 

 season ; and even the parent-fish, pregnant with some tens of 

 thousands of ova, and absolutely half-poisonous as food, are 

 wantonly destroyed. The very fulness of roe, and consequent 

 large size of the fish, proving the flesh to be unwholesome, tends 

 sometimes to raise their price in the market. Many of the salmon 

 that are offered for sale in August, and I believe, all that are 

 caught in the latter end of that month, and in September, are foul 

 fish, unfit to be eaten. 



The progressive settlement of the interior of the country is 

 prejudicial to the salmon race in various ways. The stake nets 

 and weirs or salmon traps, with which every promontory of both 

 shores of the St. Lawrence is now armed, are more numerous and 

 better arranged than formerly. As the population increases on 

 the banks of the breeding streams in both provinces, mills and 

 dams are erected, and new impediments placed in the way of the 

 fish ; whilst the Canadian fishermen, and the Indians, their 

 aboriginal enemies, become more skilful and successful every year. 

 All this improvement is calculated to thin their numbers ; and 

 the increasing trade of the river, " furrowing its waters with a 

 thousand keels " or churning the stream beneath the paddles of 

 the numerous steam-boats, doubtless disturbs or frightens many 

 of them away. 



T 



