Tfie Rideau Lakes. 237 



eluded from going farther, or are they a rear guard repre- 

 senting what remains of a retreating force whose maximum 

 stage of activity has been passed, whose area of distribu- 

 tion has been diminishing, and the individuals of whose 

 species are being gradually reduced in numbers. The 

 questions involved are interesting. The suggestion is 

 intelligible that each species has its place and pur- 

 pose to fulfil in life, just as the lower animals and 

 man have, and has its development and ultimate de- 

 cline in strength and activity in each individual as 

 well as in the numbers of its species, until, in long 

 course of time, that place is either left void or is taken by 

 some other form or variety more suited to the changes of 

 circumstances which time is gradually but continuously 

 bringing about. Many plants, at the present time, are 

 thus at their maximum stages of activity in individual 

 growth and reproduction, and have now their maximum 

 breadth of distribution ; some are merely in the early or 

 initial stages of this activity and at the initial points of 

 their ultimate area of range ; whilst others must be on the 

 decline when activity in reproducing the species is lessen- 

 ing, and the area of distribution is being circumscribed. 

 When the stage of decline has been reached, climatal and 

 other causes which would in the ordinary course limit the 

 range, would have greater effects on the species than upon 

 others which were in the progressive stage of activity or 

 had reached the maximum. 



Lake Salmon. 

 One of the finest of our fresh water fishes — the lake 

 salmon — occurs in the Lower Eideau Lake, and is the at- 

 traction every summer to many American as well as Cana- 

 dian sportsmen. It is a deep water fish confined here to 

 this lake more probably because it is the largest lake of 

 the Eideau system and the only one which has a general 

 depth exceeding 100 feet, than because its waters are 

 clearer than those of others of the system. The lake 

 salmon is caught by trolling with the live minnow at 

 depths of 100 to 150 feet, and, like its nobler friend from 



