Sift, 17, 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
229 
fleecy cloud, hanging like a feather in midair. So we 
fished the Rio Grande. How fast time flies in this 
earthly paradise! Morning, noon and night seem. to 
run together, and .the heart offers up a continual prayer 
of gratitude for life amid such surroundings. 
Edward G. Taylor. 
Canadian Salmon Rivers. 
In his acknowledgment of Mr. Davison's letter of Aug. 
30, Acting Assistant Commissioner Charles O. Lavoie 
writes that "As regards the rivers or parts of rivers 
flowing in the Mingan Seigniory, the Privy Council hav- 
ing decided that the power to legislate to regulate the 
fisheries remains with the Federal authorities, we will 
have to apply to Ottawa as to this matter.'' 
New York, Sept. 7 — Hon. Commissioner of Land, 
Forests and Fisheries, Quebec, Canada. — Sir: I have to 
acknowledge your favors of the 29th of August (No. 
10168-98) and of the 2d of September (No. 10435-98), 
which refer respectively to my letters of the 23d of 
August, concerning Nova Scotian and other schooners 
illegally setting trap nets inshore, and my letter of the 
30th of August, concerning the details of the poaching 
in the Jupitagon during the present year. 
It may make the matter of the setting of trap nets by 
schooners and the effectiveness of that class of poaching 
more evident if you consider the coast conditions at 
many places. For example, I enclose a little sketch 
(from one of your department's detailed surveys) of 
the mouth of the Jupitagon (Tchiptagon), which river 
was referred to in my last letter. It is at once apparent 
that a trap net set opposite either the passageway be- 
tween the more easterly island and the shore, or the 
passageway between the two islands — even at some lit- 
tle distance from the shore — would take many salmon. 
So many small islands lie near the coast along the 
north shore, creating in each instance a somewhat well 
defined and narrowish channel through which the sal- 
mon must pass, that many similar opportunities oe n\ 
Also the larger bays or estuaries into which so many 
of the rivers of the north shore debouch afford opp< r- 
tunity at the times of the spring tides in the months 
of May and June — or if the spring tides come early iu 
the months of June and July — for the setting of suoji 
nets. Indeed it may be predicated of the greater part of 
the "illegal" estuary netting that in places where shore 
nets are set and a license exists it is done by means of 
floating or anchored nets set for schooners, while at 
places where there is no estuary license the schooner 
might go in closer and perhaps set its nets from the 
shore itself. It is to a large extent for the purpose of 
stopping this class of poaching that the patrol steamers 
referred to in my original letter are so necessary, though 
I would not have you fail to bear in mind the absolute 
necessity of these steamers for the purpose of seeing 
that not more than the number of nets authorized by 
the license (where one exists) are set at an estuary, that 
the nets do not remain set at forbidden times, and what- 
ever distance between the ends of nets set opposite each 
other is prescribed by law or regulation is actually main- 
tained. 
Let me add (if the Government hesitates in any wise 
to incur expense on account of these steamers) that I 
think beyond a peradventure they would be almost self- 
supporting in carrying the mail for anglers located at 
rivers along the north and south shores, as also in. taking 
them to their respective rivers, bringing them back, and 
carrying their men, canoes and provisions. One great 
drawback to the north shore leases, and one reason why 
so many north shore rivers remain unlet, and why the 
revenue derived from most of those which" are 
leased is so small, and why the rivers being 
comparatively infrequently visited are not properly 
guarded, is the great difficulty of access, and 
the uncertainty of communication. If your depart- 
ment should institute patrol steamers, give* publicity to 
the fact that communication along the north shore from 
say the first of May to the end of July would be fre- 
quent, that mail for the different rivers would be car- 
ried by them if addressed to the care of your depart- 
ment, and that anglers might utilize the steamers — upon 
suitable payment — for the transportation to the rivers of 
themselves, their tents, provisions, canoes and men. I 
am inclined to believe that a remarkable change of con- 
dition would be produced as to the north shore. As 
the matter stands, the idea of hiring a north shore river 
presents to the mind many discouragements. Time, ex- 
pense, difficulty of communication and impossibility of 
return, except at rare intervals, arise immediately before 
the mind and deter anglers from applying for leases. 
In relation to the subject touched on in my letter • 
concerning the Jupitagon; the beheading and cleaning 
of codfish at the mouths of the rivers, I have been 
furnished with the following information, which may 
be of interest to your department. 
An angler who has visited a number of rivers on 
this coast writes me that it is the custom at the mouths 
of all the rivers of the coast off which codfish are taken 
to cast the heads and entrails of the cod direct into 
the stream, where they lie putrefying in the sun at low 
tide. He adds especially in relation to the St. John 
(the reference is to the St. Jean en bas), which has re- 
cently been leased by your department to Mr. Hill, at 
a very large rental, as follows: 
"At the mouth of the St. John, all along the channel 
for more than a mile, I observed his summer (1898) 
that codfish heads were lying in masses. Their quanti- 
ties could only be estimated by the ton, and they con- 
verted the mouth of this beautiful stream into a hideous 
and nauseous cesspool at low tide. I am told that the 
law provides that such offal must be buried. This pro- 
vision is never observed, and I must believe deters sal- 
mon from entering in many instances. Some years ago 
I observed in the upper waters of the Moisie that the 
blood of a single salmon spilled m a rapid current close 
t6 the bank drove out fr6m that shore more than 100 
fish, which had "been resting close to the bank on that 
side at points from 50 to 106ft. below. These fish did 
not return for several days, nor could I account for their 
departure and return in any other way." 
The same angler adds: 
'T am unable at the moment to speak from personal 
observation of the details of the poaching and abuses in 
other rivers of the north shore, but there is a good deal 
of testimony from others, which has come to my gen- 
eral knowledge, which may be of interest. It is well 
known and a matter of common report along the coast 
that the rivers east of the Natashquan are nearly all 
badly run down through excessive netting, and from the 
destruction effected by unlicensed and improperly placed 
trap nets along the shore and near the mouths of the 
rivers. It is well known that many schooners come 
from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and set trap 
nets to an anchor where they please and without paying 
license fees, and that many salmon are taken in these 
nets. 
"I was told by Mr. Chevalier, who, with his father 
and brothers, nets the mouth of the Esquimaux, that that 
magnificent stream furnished now so few salmon that it 
is scarcely worth while to set out the nets; and similar 
stories come from many other rivers of this region 
which should furnish an abundance of fish." (I call to 
your attention that this, the Esquimaux, is the stream 
which all the guide books and all the puffs which are 
so liberally published in relation to salmon in Canada 
always take pleasure in mentioning "formerly furnished 
52,500 salmon yearly.") 
All ow me in closing to add that I am informed, and 
you can readily verify the information, that Mr. John 
Brown, of Quebec, the late lessee of the Becscie (this 
is not the Shelldrake, which is in the Mingan Seigniory, 
but the Shelldrake or Obetsie, which is more in the 
neighborhood of the Godbout), gave up that river be- 
cause he found poachers on the stream with salmon in 
their possession whom he could not oust, though he 
was paying a guardian, one Michael Emoud, of Mistas- 
sini. to guard the river (i. e., the Mistassini on the 
north shore, not the river of the same name in the 
Lake St. John district.) 
I have now pursuant to my promise furnished your 
department with detailed information as to some six 
rivers, and have as well pretty thoroughly covered the 
general subject of the present condition of vour salmon 
rivers, the poaching and the methods of stopping it. I 
have called to your attention the large loss of revenue 
which the Province suffers, and the large diminution in 
food supply by reason of the improvident taking, and 
no one has written or come forward questioning or deny- 
ing any of the propositions which have been nut forth, 
although the subject has been given pretty full publicity 
in the Montreal and Quebec newspapers, the New York 
Tunes, and also much of the correspondence has been 
published in full in the American Field and the Forest 
and Stream. On the contrary, so far from questioning 
the correctness of the general position taken, on all 
hands it is admitted that the time has come for either 
definite improvement in methods of regulating the tak- 
ing or else for the disappearance of salmon. 
I have no desire to weary you with this matter, and 
vet li e subject being cf importance I am loath to 
abandon it without seeing a definite result. Informa- 
tion ccmes to me from those interested in the sub- 
ject in Canada, including a member of the Upper House 
of the Dominion Parliament, that legislation is to be 
prooosed at the coming sessions of both the Provincial 
and Dominion Legislatures, and I should be glad if in 
the event of your department's preparing any act for 
introduction in the Provincial Legislature, I might be 
notified of its proposed provisions and be given an 
opportunity to suggest in relation thereto. 
As a further evidence to you of the universal existence 
and the persistent character of the improper taking of 
salmon, and of the effects thereof, let me add that I 
received vesterday from Mr. Frank Wilkeson, of Ana- 
eortes, Washington State, a letter in which, after re- 
ferring to my original letter to your department, he adds: 
"Here our salmon, five varieties, are threatened with 
extinction bv the salmon canneries, which use traps to 
catch the fish. These fish are caught m enormous num- 
bers while migrating to their spawning beds. I have 
seen 03,000 salmon taken in one day in one trap, Last 
year 2,000,000 sock-eye salmon were thrown away by 
the trap men operating at Point Roberts. If these trans 
are allowed to continue taking fish migrating to spawn- 
ing grounds, the business of canning salmon will come 
to sneedy end. I propose to attack trap fishing in the 
Legislature in this State. Any information you can give 
me will be most thankfully received, etc." 
I remain, sir. your obedient servant. 
Chas. Stewart Davison. 
Plankton. 
In this country the fisherman as a rule continues to 
fish in any one locality until fishing in that locality has 
become unprofitable. He then moves his operations to 
new waters till these in turn are exhausted. He is apt 
to look upon each body of water as inexhaustible, and 
rarely has_ occasion to ask himself whether it is possible 
to determine in advance the amount of fish that he may 
annually take from the waters without soon depleting it. 
On the other hand, the fishculturist is apt to plant 
his fry in waters that are quite unsuited to them, or to 
plant them in numbers far in excess "of what the water 
can support. 
The fishermen proceed as farmers might who imagine 
that they could continually reap without either sowing 
or fertilizing; while the fishculturist proceeds often as 
if convinced that seed might grow on barren soil or that 
two seeds might be made to grow in place of one. 
In some regions the public is beginning, through the 
machinery of the State, to insist that its Interest in the 
fisheries be guarded, that neither fishing or planting of 
fish should be carried on in excess, and the time is fast 
approaching when the State will everywhere exert its 
authority to control the fisheries. It will then become 
necessary to determine, at least approximately, the pro- 
ductive capacity of any body of water. 
It is known that the many species Of plants and ani- 
mals which inhabit a body of water are interdependent. 
In the final analysis all the fishes are dependent directly 
or indirectly on the minute floating plants and animals 
which, taken together, we call the plankton, The total 
mass of plankton is in most bodies of water so great 
that, in comparison with it, it is customary to neglect the 
field plants along the shores and the animals that they 
harbor. .That the plankton lies at the base of all life iu 
the water is then the first principle. 
The second principle is that the plankton, considered 
as a whole, is uniformly distributed. There are no long- 
er any doubts that some constituents of plankton, e. g., 
the Crustacea, may not be distributed uniformly. When 
ever measurements have been made of the total plankton, 
it has on the other hand been found that this is so 
distributed that nearly the same volume of it occurs un- 
der each square yard of the surface. 
From these two principles Hensen concludes that a 
determination of the amount of plankton under a unit 
area of any part of the sea would afford a measure of 
the productive capacity of the part. 
It remained to find some means of making such de- 
terminations. After much labor Hensen finally adopted 
the method of drawing a net vertically from the bottom 
to the surface. Such a net strains out the plankton con- 
tained in a vertical column of water, and catches the 
whole amount of plankton under an area of the surface 
equal to the net opening. From the plankton thus ob- 
tained the total plankton of the water under considera- 
tion may be calculated, and the results expressed in 
volumes or by weights, or by enumerating the contained 
individuals. The productive capacity of a body of water, 
as expressed in its plankton production, may thus be 
compared to that of other bodies of water, and so may 
be made of practical use. 
The method which Hensen used in the sea was later 
extended by his pupil, Apstein. to fresh water. This 
method, with some slight modifications, has since been 
used in this country by Reighard, Ward and others. 
The great advantage which this method enjoys over 
others is that the water from which the net strains the 
plankton is a vertical column of water extending from 
bottom to the surface. It thus contains water from all 
depths, and is a represented sample of all the water in 
the lake examined. This column of water bears the 
same relation to the whole body of water that a sample 
removed from a sheet of metal by a punch bears to the 
whole sheet. There is no other method applicable to all 
conditions which has been shown to have this advantage. 
Prof. James Reigard. 
A Strike-in of Bluefish. 
Boston, Sept. 9. — Mr. C. A. Brown is spending his 
vacation in the early autumn, and he takes it at that sea- 
son for the sake of the shooting and fishing it is then 
possible to combine. Monomoy is the place he has 
chosen, and it has brought him the bluefishing occasion 
of a lifetime. Up to Labor Day bluefishing had been 
poor, and even up to 2 o'clock on that day there had 
been but little fishing. Brown had been "heaving the 
drail" all the morning with but little success, when all at 
once tremendous schools of herring and other small fish 
were seen leaping and skurrying for the shore on the 
ocean side of Monomoy. The incoming surf seemed 
glistening with silver in the sunlight. The little fish 
were leaping for their lives. Bluefish draiis were quickly 
brought into requisition; no bait, only a billet of lead 
armed with hooks. Every time the drail was whirled 
and cast out into the surf the indrawing brought a big 
bluefish. The casts were made in more and more rapid 
succession, and every cast quickly brought a bluefish. 
The excitement spread from the hotel down the beach 
for a long distance. Guests and fishermen w r ere all soon 
"at it," till eight or ten men were fishing — heaving and 
hauling the draiis, and catching great bluefish. The 
sight was one long to be remembered. About the first 
cast after the fishing begun our friend Brown broke his 
line on a big fish, and his drail was gone. He tried to 
buy another, but there were none for sale; every drail on 
the coast was in use. He approached a fisherman who 
was casting and drawing for all he was worth, and 
offered him a dollar for his drail — worth 30 cents. The 
fisherman did not even turn his head. Brown bid $1.50, 
The fisherman looked at him with something like con- 
tempt in his eye. The bid was raised to $2. The fisher- 
man only turned his weather eye from his work and 
shook his head. Two dollars and a half was offered for 
that drail. The fisherman turned for only a moment 
and snapped out: "Young man, the fish are worth 50 
cents apiece!" 
Brown was in despair; the greatest bluefishing he had 
ever seen, and no rigging! Just then a friend up the 
beach called to him: "I'm getting tired of this! My 
hands are cut, and my arms ache; let us fish in a team!" 
Three of them took one drail. The first, with the line 
tied around his leg, would make the cast and draw the 
fish up to the beach. No. 2 would seize the line and run 
up to the beach with it, dropping the fish for No. 3 to 
unhook. During this time No. t would be untying the 
line from his leg and changing places with the man 
above him, while the drail and line would be ready for 
No. 3. In this way they fished while the fishing lasted, 
which was only for a few hours. But such excitement 
while the fishing did last! People without rigging- 
even rushed into the surf and caught partly disabled fish 
by their tails as they were being helped to escape by the 
receding waves. One man actually rushed down the surf 
following the wave, and caught a couple of big squiteague 
by their tails. Several sand flounders were also caught 
in the surf. It was a great day for fish, but the fishing 
ceased almost as suddenly as it began. By 5 o'clock not 
a bluefish could be taken, and the same was true of the 
next day. 
The tired captors took a horse and cart from the hotel 
and drove it along the beach, loading on the fish — one, 
two and three or more loads. Everybody had bluefish 
for breakfast and supper. There were sent up to the 
Boston market the next day i,ooolbs. of bluefish. The 
most remarkable feature of all was the size of the school; 
not a fish under iolbs., and the largest Weighed plump 
2olbs. 
Boston, Sept. 12. — Considerable interest is noted 
about here in the opening of the partridge season in 
Maine, Sept. 15. Several Boston gunners are already in 
that State on vacation trips, with shotguns ready, and 
others will go this week. H. S. Jones has gone to Buck- 
field, with the full determination of being on the ground 
