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BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
salmon stream. I visited several other small streams between this point and the Genesee, at Rochester, 
and found them equally well-noted salmon streams, as also the Genesee as far as the falls, together with 
all streams between that point and the Niagara. 
None of these streams visited are now inhabited by the salmon, but the testimony of all with 
whom I had any conversation on the subject confirmed the fact that they once had been salmon 
streams of greater or less celebrity. Their testimony all went to show that the last salmon that had 
ever inhabited these streams had been caught, and that neither sawdust nor other foreign matter had 
aught to do in their extermination. It is a fact too apparent to need further confirmation that th&frap 
and pound nets have entirely exterminated this fish from the south shore of Lake Ontario. They 
have been set in the mouths of nearly all the rivers emptying into the lake, and consequently the fish 
have become an easy prey to the fishermen. 
In conclusion I would say that I found the St. Lawrence to have once been inhabited very largely 
by the salmon, and it is the opinion of the inhabitants living along its banks that it might again be 
stocked. 
An account of the occurrence of salmon in Lake Ontario during the past three 
years will be a very meager record. In 1891 the writer saw one weighing 7i pounds 
that was caught in a gill net in the Bay of Quinte about August 17. This was the 
only specimen taken that year of which any definite knowledge could be obtained, 
although there was a rumor that several others were killed near the mouth of Salmon 
River. In 1890 a salmon weighing 12 pounds was taken on a fly rod below the first 
dam in the Oswego River. About three years ago several small specimens, weighing 
2 or 3 pounds, were secured along the shore near Oswego. There have probably been a 
few fish caught in some of the numerous streams on the Canadian side, but concerning 
these no information is available. 
Coming now to a consideration of the cause or causes of the disappearance of sal- 
mon from the waters in question, attention is first directed to the opinions of Dr. M. 0. 
Edmunds and Mr. Seth Green which have already been quoted. Both gentlemen 
attributed the decrease of salmon to the setting of nets near or in the mouths of rivers, 
by means of which the fish were caught when on their way to the spawning-grounds. 
The erection of dams in the salmon streams has been regarded as a potent factor 
in the disappearance of the salmon and is the point on which the greatest stress was 
laid by the United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries in a report* submitted 
to the Senate on January 26, 1891, on the advisability of establishing a hatchery on 
Lake Ontario. To quote Commissioner McDonald : 
The cause of the disappearance, practically, of salmon from the streams of the St. Lawrence Basin 
has been chiefly and primarily the erection of obstructions in all of the rivers, which have prevented 
the salmon from reaching their spawning-grounds, and so natural reproduction has been absolutely 
inhibited. 
In the first annual report of the New York fish commission, dated March 9, 1869, 
a statement appears showing the condition of the chief salmon streams of that State 
emptying into Lake Ontario. An examination of this leads to the conclusion that the 
dams must have had great influence on the decrease in salmon and that Commissioner 
McDonald’s point was well made. The report mentions the Salmon and Oswego rivers 
and Little Sandy, Big Sandy, and Little Salmon creeks. The number of obstructions 
in Little Salmon Creek was not known, but in the other streams there were no less 
than sixty-two dams. 
Report of the United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries on advisability of establishing 
a fisli-hatchery near the St. Lawrence River. (Senate Mis. Doc. 55, Fifty-first Congress, 2d session.) 
