98 



THE CANADIAN SPORTSMAN AND NATURALIST. 



dust will go together even underwater, and we 

 have known instances on the Ottawa when 

 the acid and pyroligneous carbon exploded in. 

 winter sending the ice into thousands of 

 pieces.— C. 



HATCHING SALMON. 

 The Government of the Dominion devotes a 

 large amount of money annually for fish 

 hatching, and a few men derive a very com- 

 fortable living from the business. But we 

 doubt that since the hatcheries were erected 

 the species of fishes hatched therein have in- 

 creased to be of additional commercial value. 

 What has become of the thousands of young 

 fishes which were planted in Lake Ontario ? 

 Were any of them seen since ? What have 

 they produced ? These are important ques- 

 tions to ask. The hatching establishment at 

 Newcastle must make some kind of show, and 

 the employees have to exhibit a little energy 

 in order that the Government may see that 

 they are working for their money. This is all 

 very well if anything could be shown for the 

 outlay. We say that nothing of apparent 

 value has as yet been derived from hatching 

 Salmon in Canada. On the contrary, the 

 adult fish are taken from one river and 

 killed to procure ova that other rivers may 

 be stocked ; yet the hatching of Salmon has 

 been going on for years in the Provinces of 

 Ontario and Quebec, and the fish are becoming 

 scarcer year after year. This is pointedly the 

 case on the south coast of the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence, where Salmon hatching houses are 

 situated. It is true that there is too much 

 netting and too many weirs set up in the tidal 

 waters which are destructive to all marine 

 fishes, and the Salmon have to suffer from 

 these causes, but we deprecate against the 

 evil mode in which adult Salmon are taken 

 from their native river to procure material for 

 the imaginary purposes of increasing the 

 species. It is cruel, for the fishes are destroyed 

 in the process, besides it is unnatural that 

 Salmon should be planted in a river, the water 



of which is disagreeable to them. Of course 

 the Fishery officials will say that we know 

 nothing about hatching Salmon. True, we 

 have not been in the business but possess a 

 knowledge of the operations. There is this 

 argument however, in our favour, that is to 

 say, it is interfering with a course of nature, 

 which if allowed to proceed in the old way 

 would doubtless show that it is wrong. The 

 object of these fish-breeders may be to make 

 new species by transporting and transmuting. 

 They would like to make a new species of 

 Salmon (in fact, that has been tried already ; 

 it however turned out to be old Salmo salar 

 after all), but it is impossible, the process is 

 not natural. Instead of changing the form or 

 flavour or increasing the true Salmon, they are 

 merely helping to produce deperdition, and 

 we wonder that the system has been so long 

 allowed. It would be far belter for the Govern- 

 ment and the country to devote a portion orall 

 of the money expended on hatching fish, to 

 make the rivers easy for Salmon to reach their 

 natural spawning-grounds. Artificial fish-leaps 

 should be made in several rivers along the^ 

 North Shore of the Lower St. Lawrence. If such 

 work was taken in hand, there are several 

 rivers now almost worthless that could be 

 made profitable, and the Fishery Department 

 are cognizant of the fact. The late Rev. Dr. 

 Adamson, published a pamphlet on this sub- 

 ject. We have spoken of it before, but the 

 Department will take neither advice nor in- 

 struction from any man — not even a lessee of 

 a river, who, in many cases, knows more about 

 it than they do. To show the cruelty and 

 destruction of the fish culturists, we here 

 take the liberty to quote from the St. John 

 Neios of August 1881, where the editor attacks 

 Professor Hind's theory regarding the migra- 

 tion of Salmon. We have had the pleasure of 

 knowing Mr. Hind when Professor of Chemistry 

 in Trinity College, Toronto, and have read 

 some curious statements in regard to his 

 knowledge of Natural History since he re- 

 moved to Nova Scotia ; but it matters not, we 



