174 TRANSACTIONS iSqQ-'oO 



the female," and he asserted that frequently there occurred 

 seven males where there might be not more than one female 

 salmon. During the second year of the Restigouche Hatchery's 

 work, the late John Mowat reported that the male fish were in 

 excess of the female as two to one, and the late Alexander 

 Russell, in his famous book " The Salmon," gave prominence to 

 Shaw's not le^s interesting discovery, that in the 5'-oung striped 

 "parr" stage, male salmon are mature, " the male parr (alone) 

 arrives at sexual maturity, and does and can impregnate the ova 

 of the adult female salmon." 



If, to the natural loss of enormous quantities of eggs by non- 

 fertilization, be added the depredations of ducks, loons, herons 

 and aquatic birds, not to speak of otters and four-footed enemies, 

 as well as destruction by floods, by mud, gravel and ice, it is easy 

 to see how great are the advantages offered by artificial incuba- 

 tion, and by caring for the eggs in properly equipped hatcheries _ 



Anglers, as a rule, favour fish culture, but there are excep- 

 tions, and the sportsman needs to be reminded that, whereas, 

 the fish are liberated strong and uninjured after being artifically 

 spawned, those taken bj^ the angler's line shortly before the 

 breeding season , are killed and prevented from fulfilling their task 

 of peopling the waters with j'-oung brood. It is easy to hatch 

 90% of salmon eggs in a hatchery, whereas, Sir Humphrey Davy 

 estimated that not six per cent, of the eggs deposited on the 

 breeding grounds, come to perfection, and .Stoddard held that 

 only four or five fish fit for the^ table were the result of 30,000 

 ova on the spawning beds. The take of salmon in a single net 

 may suffice to furnish enough eggs to keep up the supply of 

 young fish, and it is the rule at the Government nets to liberate 

 all fish not required, and these are allowed to ascend to the 

 upper waters. Thus at the Tadoussac nets in 1889, 559 salmon 

 were taken for the hatchery, but 310 of the largest were 

 sufficient, and the remaining 249 were turned into the river 

 again. This is frequently done. In most of the hatcheries 

 reliance is placed upon the Departmental nets, managed by the 

 hatchery officers. In these nets fish are trapped, and after being 

 spawned are set free. In some cases parent fish are bought from 

 local fishermen by special arrangement, but the plan has, on the 

 whole, proved uncertain, as the fishermen asked exorbitant 



