Aire. 20, 1898.] 
FOREST AND STREAiVx. 
149 
beyond any such remedy as has been attempted in one 
river, i. e.. the sinking in the pools of casks filled with 
stones, with spikes driven through from the inside, in 
the hope that the nets would be torn and destroyed 
"and netting the pool made ineffective. This would be 
of some use were the nets literally "drawn" in the 
pools. 
If in giving these details I were telling any secrets 
or giving any information not known to hundreds of 
poachers in the Province of Quebec, I might be re- 
luctant to furnish the particulars, but the information 
is common to all, these methods are practiced by many, 
and a recognition on the part of the department of the 
methods of poaching followed in the Province is a con- 
dition precedent to exercising restraint thereon. 
The final tragedy for the salmon — spearing — is more 
largely practiced to the eastward, where there are still 
some considerable number of fish left. As to the more 
westerly rivers, they shrug their shoulders and say it is 
too much trouble and hardly pays any more — the fish 
have become too scarce to make it worth while. 
The manner of taking fish by spearing is of course 
well understood by all. The outfit is simple. Five 
cents worth of iron will make a spear-head; a sapling 
answers for a shaft; a roll of birch bark makes a flam- 
beau, and a canoe (or even two logs lashed together 
on a still-water) completes the outfit. It is perhaps 
more generally practiced later in the season, when the 
fish are lying on the spawning beds or are in the still- 
waters, and many of the fish taken by spearing are 
therefore unfit for food. 
As for any diminution in the supply of salmon 
through the legitimate rod and line catch, it is suffi- 
cient to say that the number of salmon taken on the fly 
throughout the Province of Quebec (which realizes sub- 
stantial revenues from the lessees of waters for that 
purpose) is so utterly inconsiderable as to be of no im- 
portance whatever. Were this catch multiplied by ten 
and continued for a thousand years it would make no 
impression upon the number of salmon. 
The facts which I have given can be easily con- 
firmed. For example. I had no difficulty in ascertaining 
that netting in the Saguenay began this year on May 
20, the fish taken being believed to be those which 
had remained in the rivers through the winter and were 
drifting down to the sea. On one day this spring in pas- 
sing some twenty miles along the Saguenay a local 
habitant tells me he passed seven nets set. Another 
habitant dwelling on a river told me this spring that 
last year, being aroused about 10:30 at night by his 
dogs barking, he went out of the house and found seven 
individuals with canoes, spears and other paraphernalia 
(N. B. — He told me also the town they came from) 
mounting the bank of the river to proceed to the upper 
pools. 
JNo ordinary preventives possible to lessees can, lack- 
ing the active assistance of the Government, improve 
this state of affairs. A guardian's house at every pool, 
necessitating anywhere from four to a dozen or more per- 
manent guardians on each river, will not suffice, if prose- 
cutions are adjourned until lessees, being absent, must 
journey many hundred miles to attend a trial, and if 
the results of successful prosecutions are nominal fines 
or discharges. Nor can a guardian be on watch both 
day and night continuously, even if there be one at every 
pool; nor can a single guardian successfully oppose a 
number of (let us say armed) men encouraged to per- 
severe by a lax administration of the laws regulating 
the improper taking of fish. 
In saying what I have I would add that I have been 
actuated more by the consideration of the importance 
to the public of the preservation of the fish than by 
any personal interest; for I have, as you know, given up 
any idea of fishing any longer in rivers to the west- 
ward, and a sufficient supply still exists in some of the 
extreme easterly rivers to afford tolerable fishing for 
some years to come. 
Practicable Remedies. 
As to remedies, they are, if earnestly followed, simple 
and easy of application. There should be: 
First, (a) Comparatively few Government licenses. 
(b) No license to set a net within 400yds. of the em- 
bouchere of any river should be granted (for the reason 
that nets at the mouth of a river take substantially that 
river's supply instead of taking toll from the general 
supply for all rivers) ; in other words, netting within an 
estuary should not be allowed. 
(c) Licensed nets should not be allowed to be kept 
set for more than three appointed days in each week, 
and the days should be uniform throughout the province. 
(d) There should be absolute forfeiture of any fish- 
ing license for infringement of these rules. 
(e) The extinguishment (by capitalization or purchase) 
of seigniory rights — if the same are not subject to Gov- 
ernment rules — would in the end be a. profitable invest- 
ment of Government funds. 
Second. Two small and (even moderately) speedy 
steamers should be employed from May 1 to at least July 
15 patrolling the shores. These steamers should have no 
appointed time for visiting localities, nor should they 
follow any regular order of visit; and they should not 
limit their patrolling wholly to the daytime. Those in 
charge of them should be properly authorized to search 
without a warrant any suspicious vessel for nets or 
salmon (I refer you to this year's amendments of the 
New York game laws, and the discussions which led 
thereto as to the necessity of authorizing game con- 
stables to search on suspicion). 
Third. The sale of salmon should be regulated. 
There would be but little difficulty in establishing a Gov- 
ernment depot in Quebec, Montreal and other points 
where salmon are sold as a commercial product, or in 
allowing their sale or exportation only by licensed mer- 
chants, who should be under bonds not to purchase from 
unauthorized vendors. 
Fourth. There should be, of course, forfeiture of any 
salmon illegally taken, and forfeiture of any nets ille- 
gally possessed or improperly set or constructed or found 
illegally in use. 
Fifth. A rapidl3 r ascending scale of fines, and in the 
case of a persistent offender imprisonment. 
Sixth. The department itself should undertake the 
prosecution of offenders upon information from lessees 
and others. (This is a matter of very considerable im- 
portance.)- 
Seventh. Guardians of rivers should be authorized to 
seize and destroy nets, spears, canoes and other im- 
plements illegally being made use of, and should be 
authorized to arrest without warrant and convey be- 
fore the nearest magistrate anyone found actually of- 
fending or on the leased land under suspicious cir- 
cumstances, and such magistrate should be required to 
hold the accused to bail in a sufficient sum to secure 
his attendance. 
Eighth. Fishways and sawdust: 
(a) No mill or other dam should be allowed to 
be erected in any river below the lowest impassable falls 
(the location of which should be established for each 
river by your department) without an approved fish- 
way being constructed therein. 
(b) The detailed plan of the proposed fishway for 
any proposed dam should be filed with your depart- 
ment, and the dam should not be permitted to be con- 
structed until the proposed fishway was approved. 
(c) The owner of every dam containing a fishway 
should be required to certify on oath to the department 
between the first day of April and the first day of 
May in each year that the fishway was unobstructed and 
still remained passable for fish, and that the same had 
not been obstructed or impassable since his last pre- 
vious certificate. 
(d) All fishways should be at least once in three 
years inspected by your department. 
(e) As to all dams now existent below the first im- 
passable falls, the owners or those benefited by the 
existence thereof should be compelled to construct 
proper fishways on plans approved by the department 
by the first day of May, 1899. Penalty for failure should 
be heavy and rigorously exacted. (All such dams now 
abandoned should be blown up.) 
(f) The discharge of sawdust into any river is 
wholly unnecessary, and should be more rigorously pro- 
hibited than it is at present (substantially all your rivers 
are at least potentially salmon rivers, and are certainly 
trout rivers). No statement that a river is not a sal- 
mon river should excuse the discharge of sawdust into 
the stream — by the way, one often sees considerable 
amounts of floating sawdust in the main Saguenay, 
which hardly adds to its picturesqueness- or attractive- 
ness for the tourist. 
Restocking. 
There remains now the further subject of restocking 
depleted rivers (which ought to be wholly unnecessary). 
I call to your attention that the restocking conducted 
under your department is, as I understand, wholly by 
means of placing fry in the rivers or their tributaries. 
This, while an earnest and desirable effort, is 
largely useless, taking into account the necessary 
trouble and expense, as compared with restocking 
with in the case of trout, fingerlings. and in the case 
of salmon, parr. A hundred fin^erling trout or a hun- 
dred parr are probablj r worth more in a river than 5,000 
fry. Even if the loss at the hatcheries of raising them 
from fry should be 50 per cent., the gain from stocking 
with parr would be enormous. This is well known, and 
indeed any experienced fish commissioner would gladly 
give you figures and details. I believe that Mr. Cheney 
here in New York State, to whom the angling frater- 
nity owe so much, has conducted some interesting and 
I think successful experiments in this direction, 
which, if I remember rightly, he looks on as dictating 
by their results in what direction future effort in re- 
stocking should be made; and the director of the 
hatchery at Tadousac. with whom I had the pleasure of 
speaking on the subject a year or more ago, I think 
agrees with these views, and it is only the lack of facili- 
ties for raising parr at the establishment that prevents 
the idea being put into effective operation. 
Another point of importance in this respect is study- 
ing the local conditions in relation to the placing of fry 
in particular rivers. For example, as to one river it 
appears that for lack of full knowledge of local con- 
ditions the stocking has been done by depositing fry 
annually for some years in a certain lake. This lake I 
happen to know. It is a dark, narrow tarn among the 
mountains, perhaps a mile long and a quarter of a 
mile wide. It produces an active, robust and dusky, 
though small trout. It connects with the particular river 
by a little stream perhaps five or six miles in length, 
with several very steep descents. The conditions are such 
as to make it improbable that any perceptible percentage 
of the fry, if they survive to make as smolts the at- 
tempt (and I doubt if one in a thousand of the fry has 
escaped the trout), could reach the main river alive. The 
outlet of the lake is very small, is at one extremity, and 
but a few feet of water per hour flows through it. Upon 
inquiry, I learned that it had been believed or reported 
that there were no trout in the lake; also, that the road 
did not continue beyond it, but unfortunately neither 
supposition is the fact. 
It may be said that it has not been demonstratively as 
yet established that parr placed in a river (instead of fry) 
would acquire as to it the "animus revertendi," but it is 
at least sufficiently probable to make it a neglect of ex- 
pediency not to make the experiment; and a three years' 
experiment in a single, now wholly depleted, river would 
establish the fact definitely one way or the other. More- 
over, as to restocking, no river not literally ''poached to 
death" needs stocking. Natural increase will much 
more than keep up the supply of salmon so far as rod 
and line fishing and legitimate netting on the coasts un- 
der proper regulations are concerned, while as for rivers 
which are thoroughly poached, it seems mere waste of 
money and of effort to ■ restock them without dealing 
with the poaching question, and without regulating the 
excessive and illegal netting. Moreover, unfortunate- 
ly the existence of hatcheries and the earnest effort 
now made toward restocking produces necessarily a feel- 
ing that the salmon industry is being fully cared for, and 
almost discourages further or more practical effort. 
It would be far better for the future of this valuable as- 
set of the Dominion to abandon the hatcheries and regu- 
late the poaching, than to continue the hatcheries and do 
no more in the future than has been done in the past to 
protect thenatural supply offish. I doubt if the Province of 
Quebec will appreciate — until the moose have been slaugh- 
tered in their yards, the caribou killed off for their hides, 
the smaller animals snared and trapped at all times and 
seasons, and the salmon exterminated by poachers — how 
many visitors are brought annually and how much 
money expended within her borders by those attracted 
by the game in her forests and rivers. When that time 
comes the expense and difficulty of rehabilitation and the 
loss of revenue in the meantime will afford a lesson. 
In closing, I venture to direct your department's at- 
tention to the excellent results of the system of com- 
paratively uniform protection to game produced in so 
short a time in Maine; one of the most interesting 
features of which is the hearty concurrence of the guides 
and others, who, it had been supposed, would think their 
interests lay in the opposite direction, and the ease with 
which the people of that State have been educated to a 
better appreciation of what policy was the best for their 
material interests. 
I remain with great respect yours, etc., 
Chas. Stewart Davison. 
English and American Anglers, 
BY FRED MATHER. 
That the American inherited his love of angling from 
his English, or rather British, ancestors is true, for 
angling in other countries is in a crude state, and is re- 
garded rather as a means of getting fish than as a 
sport. Yet there is quite a difference in the anglers of 
the two countries, in temperament more than in methods, 
and I will try to sketch the differences. 
The Scholarly Angler. 
England has held a majority of this class since, and 
even before, the days of Walton. Under this term may 
be included men of literary tastes to whom their own 
fishing experiences only serve to whet an appetite for 
the subject outside of books which merely treat of 
baits and tackle — men who are familiar with the works 
of Oppian, Berners, Walton, Dennys, Badham and the 
host of English writers who delved in the literature of 
early Greek, Latin and other writers, and dug up mislaid 
gems for the delectation of latter day anglers. 
The late Thomas Westwood published a little month- 
ly brochure called ''The Angler's Note Book and Natur- 
alist's Record," in which he embalmed all the strange 
happenings to anglers, as well as other things which he 
found in old publications. In 1884 Mr. Westwood said: 
"There has been much talk of late of the scholarly 
angler. Where, we should like to know, is the scholarly 
angler's habitat? What manner of man is he? What are 
his ways and doings? We had an ideal of our own on 
the subject — the scholarly angler, we decided, must be 
a man of parts and learning, of course. He must be 
instinct with fine enthusiasms and many-sided aspira- 
tions — not an angler merely, but a naturalist, a philos- 
opher and a 'bibliophile' as well. He must be open- 
eyed, stalwart-limbed, cheerful-minded — an athletic 
Christian, and such an Admirable Crichton as we find 
described for us in the 'Pleasures of Princes' and John 
Denny's 'Secrets.' 
"With this ideal before our eyes, we set out in search 
of our scholarly angler — in the towns, under the trees 
of Academe, by the rivers that anglers love. We sought 
for him as pertinaciously as Diogenes sought for his 
honest man, and with no better result. He eluded us. 
Then we inquired of comers — we buttonholed some of 
our friends and acquaintances. Some of them smiled, 
some were sarcastic, all insisted that our ideal was mis- 
leading us — that we were on a wild goose chase, that 
if scholarly angler there were he must be of a totally 
different type — old and decrepit, the dust lying heavy on 
his erudition and in his heart, infirm of limb and feeble 
of vision — that, in short, he must be the man Shakes- 
peare has described as a 'lean and slippered pantaloon, 
sans eyes, sans teeth, sans taste, sans everything.' * * * 
"And thereupon we dropped into a dream — a dream 
of old days; and in this dream we came suddenly face to 
face with our ideal in the flesh, and his name was Charles 
Kingsley, the name, my readers, of a man of men. Here 
was our Admirable Crichton, who verily saw 'books in 
the running brooks,' and wrote them. Here was the 
athletic Christian who would rise before the lark to fish 
the streams of Devon with a soul as fresh as the morn- 
ing — who was neither, to his last hour, old and decrepit, 
nor an 'Okinetos the Unmoved,' nor a pillar of salt in a 
Sahara of sand — who had all those fine enthusiasms and 
many-sided aspirations Ave spoke of, and who has left 
us his 'Chalk-stream Studies,' with many another pisca- 
torial page that the world will not willingly let die. Is 
the race of Charles Kingsleys utterly extinct among us? 
Have we sunk so low that not a remnant is left? Me- 
■ thinks our paper blushes at having to record the ques- 
tion. 
"Anglers of England! your name is legion — you throng 
the water-courses — your clubs and associations are 
past counting — are you satisfied with the mere gross, 
material pleasure of the sport? You have all read Izaak 
Walton — have you not discovered how much of good 
and great there is in him apart from such questions as 
bottom fishing and ground bait? Will you not raise 
yourselves to a higher level and become 'Gentlemen 
Anglers' in a fuller and more intellectual sense than 
heretofore? * * *" 
This ground was so well covered by Mr. Westwood 
that I preferred to quote his words instead of giving 
his ideas in my own way. But mark what he says in a 
postscript: "We have cited, by name, a splendid angler. 
par excellence, but we confess we could have added sev- 
erals others, had we not feared to offend their mod- 
esty. * * *" 
Let me add: First among the scholarly anglers of 
England was the late Thomas Westwood, who wrote the 
above, and who, with Marston, Davies, Francis and 
others, formed a galaxy of English scholarly anglers. 
In our own land I share Westwood's fear of offending 
the modesty of many who may be classed under this 
same head, but the names of Endicott, Lanman, Prime 
and Hallock loom up at once, while every issue of 
Forest and Stream seems to extend the line. 
