160 American Fisheries Society. 



IRRIGATION IN FOOTHILLS AND PLAINS. 



In the hilly regions, among the western foot-hills, the ques- 

 tion is not identical with that on the level prairie. Where the 

 water-supply comes from swift mountain streams, the character 

 of the water, and the kinds of fish, are in contrast with those 

 of more sluggish and warmer water courses, meandering over 

 the plains. Superior species inhabit the foot-hill streams, which 

 are more esteemed bv angflers and more valued on the table. 

 The game cut-throat trout or red throat, the fastidious and famous 

 grayling, that is to say the true northern grayling, not the Rocky 

 Mountain whitefish, also known as Williamson's whitefish, which 

 is popularly called grayling in the West — these are among the 

 fishes which make their home in the rapid streams of the hilly 

 territory. The slower sluggish water courses over the prairie 

 are characterised by pike-perch or dore (the wall-eye), jackfish 

 or long-nosed pike, yellow perch, the silvery herring-like gold- 

 eye, various catfishes, mullets, and many species of suckers, and, 

 in some localities, the fresh-water ling or cusk, all of which 

 fish, at some season of the year, especially in the colder months, 

 are very fair table fish, and even the least esteemed can be so 

 prepared by salting and kippering as to be very palatable. 



IRRIGATION RESERVOIR DAMS MAY BENEFIT FiSH. 



The erection of dams and the blocking of even important 

 streams is not always a detriment, for the retention of a large 

 body of water may provide more food, cooler conditions, and 

 more ample environment for fish, and result in the production of 

 larger fish and a more abundant supply of them. Local condi- 

 tions vary, and a condition that may be injurious in one locality 

 may be actually beneficial in another. I can recall two cases of 

 substantial benefit to the fisheries due directly to the erection of 

 dams which had caused great complaint on the part of mistaken 

 enthusiasts. Thus in a stream in Guysborough County, Nova 

 Scotia, small trout abounded, though at certain seasons some 

 large sea trout ascended and later descended and returned to the 

 sea; but after the erection of a dam for logging purposes, the 

 body of water above was increased, and the trout retained in this 

 deeper water increased in quantity and became of much larger 

 average size, so that the anglers who complained of the dam at 

 first, readily admitted the substantial benefit to fishing which 



