practical papers—Fish Culture. 
4 J 5 
never seen noticed in print, and wish here to put on record. The 
white-fish (and also the salmon trout) have, during most of the 
year, except at spawning time, a certain swing on and off shore. 
They will swing out, say, fifteen miles into the lake, and then 
back again until within two miles of the shore. The men who are 
fishing for them are well aware of this swing, and set their nets 
out or in with reference to it. But the curious fact is this; that 
at a certain season of the year, somewhere from the middle of 
June to the middle of July, the white-fish forsake their accus¬ 
tomed haunts, and make a sudden night journey to some sand¬ 
bar, close in shore, where they may be seen in great quantities. 
This visit lasts about ten days, and then they all return to their 
former grounds and accustomed motion. What may be the rea¬ 
son of this visit 1 do not know. It looks tome like a summer 
pleasure excursion on a large scale. There must be some good 
reason, of course, and some time it will come to light. 
SALMON-TROUT. 
The rate of decrease of the salmon-trout has not been so great 
as that of the white-fish. This is owing to the fact that it is a deep 
water fish and the difficulty of catching them is thus increased. 
The rate of decrease has been rapid enough, however, to excite 
well grounded fears of their total extinction. Witness the fol¬ 
lowing facts : they used to be sold at $2.50 or $3 per hundred 
pounds ; they are now sold at $7 per hundred pounds. This fact 
on its face would seem to indicate a failure of more than one-half 
of the old average, but in reality it indicates much more, because 
improved methods of catching ihem are now in use. That the 
decrease is more than one-half is sufficiently shown by the fact 
that not so many are now caught in two miles of gill-net as used 
to be caught in forty rods of gill-net. Besides this, in old times, 
owing to the scarcity ot fishermen, only a portion of any one lake 
was in use at one time, but now, in order to keep up the supply, 
almost the entire area is netted. Now the salmon-trout do not 
roam over the whole lake, but any particular school of fish may 
almost always be found on the same ground. So long as only a 
portion of the ground was netted, some families had a fair chance 
to increase, and by their overflow to fill up the rest. But now, 
