320 DOMESTICATED TROUT. 



cessor, until seven or eight nets had found their way to 

 the contraband stores of the wardens. 



At length the written instructions of the Fisheries 

 Department were received by Mr. Goodfellow, and not 

 long after I arrived at Mirimichi. The department in- 

 structions made the fishing conditional upon a written 

 permit from the inspector of the Provinces. On my arrival, 

 the inspector was immediately telegraphed for. The com- 

 munity was by this time worked up into a state of great 

 excitement, and the inspector had heard only the warden's 

 side of the story. But upon seeing the works which had 

 been constructed, and hearing a full account of the affair, 

 and of what was contemplated, he fell in with the under- 

 taking, and gave it his hearty support. He also gave a 

 written permit, drawn up in the most liberal terms, for the 

 taking of three hundred salmon from the river for the pur- 

 poses of the establishment. 



After receiving this permit, no pains were spared to 

 catch as many salmon as possible ; but the good runs were 

 over, and we captured but twenty-eight fish between this 

 time and the spawning season, which began in one pond 

 the 15th of October. We took on this and the two fol- 

 lowing days 226,500 eggs from twenty-eight fish. On the 

 20th of October we found, to our surprise, that the fish we 

 caught that day in the river had already spawned. The 

 writer immediately took a gang of men and a forty-fathom 

 sweep-seine, and swept the river thoroughly for nine miles 

 above our nets, though the floating ice had begun to run. 

 Many salmon were caught, but all had spawned except two, 

 one of which had been injured by a spear. The salmon in 

 the pond continued to hold their spawn till late in Novem- 

 ber, though most of them had been found ripe, and had 

 been stripped by the third day of that month. We took 

 in all 443,900 eggs from forty-eight salmon. This num- 

 ber, reduced by removal of dead eggs and accidents to 



