American Fishenes Society 65 



couple of years ago, on the nomination of Dr. Hugh M. Smith 

 on, as I understand, the ground that I had had considerable ex- 

 perience in fishery questions outside of America, mainly in Eng- 

 land; but not merely as an Englishman but as interested also 

 in the fisheries of the Dominion of Canada and not less interest- 

 ed, being a fisherman, in fish and fisheries wherever they may be 

 found. I desire to express a very strong opinion before you here 

 today, based solely upon the remarks that were made in the 

 northwest corner of the room, to the effect that it was desired to 

 maintain a custom whereby a certain fish, the whitefish, is caught 

 mainly in the spawning season; and I just wish briefly to put 

 these two principles before you : viz., first, that the essence of pro- 

 tection is to protect the spawning fish, both during the spawning 

 season and for a sufficiently long period prior to the spawning 

 season, to enable the roe to fully develop, and the fish to deposit 

 their spawn ; and also to protect them for a sufficiently long pe- 

 riod to enable them to recover sufficiently good condition to at- 

 tain the best price in the market. 



The second proposition is, that where you have natural con- 

 ditions interfered with only or mainly by the operations of man 

 in the matter of fishing, not in the matter of other obstructions 

 than netting to fish reaching their spawning beds, not in the 

 matter of pollutions and other dangers to fish life, but simply on 

 the question of fishing, that you will let nature do its work and 

 that you should depend, to the smallest possible extent, upon 

 artificial aids to nature. The conditions are different when you 

 have waters that are available for the development of fish after 

 they have been hatched and placed there, but are only so avail- 

 able. As an instance I will mention a well known case of one 

 of the originally most productive salmon rivers in Europe, name- 

 ly, the Rhine. In the mouth of the Ehine are the most valuable 

 salmon fisheries in Europe. The principal waters of the Rhine, 

 divided as you know they are among several states, are so abso- 

 lutely destroyed and cut off from the spawning fish ascending 

 from the sea that, unless artificial propagation were practiced, 

 the Rhine fisheries would be absolutely destroyed; but in your 

 great lakes, to take this concrete case, the whitefish have oppor- 

 tunities of spawning naturally, if they are not caught in undue 

 numbers, and I do submit to you that before you take any action 



