APPENDIX. 827 



should be to inform themselves of all infringements of the law, 

 and prosecute offenders. 



The writer has seen salmon speared both in Scotland and in 

 America, and besides its being a cruel mode of taking the fish, it 

 seems to frighten the salmon generally, and can be most success- 

 fully practised when it does the most harm ; that is, when the fish 

 are near the surface on the spawning beds. The Scotch leister, 

 unlike the Indian fish-spear, has several prongs and barbs of iron 

 at the end of its pole. 



The consequences of salmon spearing by Indians have thus been 

 described : 



The practice of capturing salmon by torchlight and spears is 

 justly held to be most pernicious. Employed, as it almost in- 

 variably is, at a time when the waters of each river are lowest 

 and clearest, while the salmon are baulked at the base of steep 

 falls, awaiting the next freshet, and congregate during sultry 

 nights near the mouths of cool little rivulets emptying into the 

 main stream, or loiter about the tails of pools, spear fishing in- 

 volves excessive slaughter. Sometimes in the course of one night, 

 as many salmon will be thus killed and maimed as an ordinary 

 net-fishery along the coast or in the estuaries can capture through- 

 out the regular fishing season. Practised during autumn and 

 periods of reproduction, as is still more frequently the case, it 

 becomes indescribably bad, it is the crowning act of extirpation. 

 The luckless fish are then killed at a stage which makes the bare 

 feature of destroyal in the highest degree deplorable. They have 

 won their devious way from the piscine pastures of old ocean, 

 through labyrinths of nets, and a multitude of watery perils. 

 Urged onwards by strong instincts, they have surmounted in- 

 credible difficulties and achieved marvels of adventurous travel. 

 They are now arrived at nature's free hospital of piscary lying-in. 

 The water-way by which they came is in many parts impassably 

 shoal, and no more heavy breeders can reach the same high 



Y 4 



