ial instructions to check
the use of firearms on the point at Riviere Ouelle, in order that the
beluga might not be frightened, to the ruin of the extensive fishery
that has existed there for more than two hundred years. Its sight, touch
and taste are also well developed but it has no olfactory nerve and is
apparently without the sense of smell. The creature has qualities that
we should hardly expect. It has been tamed and almost domesticated. The
enterprising Barnum exhibited in New York a beluga which drew a boat
about in his aquarium. At Boston another beluga from the St. Lawrence
drew about a floating car carrying a woman performer. It knew its keeper
and at the proper time would appear and put its head from the water to
be harnessed or to take food. This beluga would take in its mouth a
sturgeon and a small shark confined in the same tank, play with them and
allow them to go unharmed. It would also pick up and toss stones with
its mouth.

The beluga is greedy. In the early spring, when he is thin and half
starved, capelin and smelt in great numbers come to spawn along the
north and south shores of the St. Lawrence. With high tide comes the
beluga's chance to feed on the spawning fish and he will rush in quite
near to shore for his favourite food. So voracious is he that with the
fish he takes quantities of sand into his stomach. In eight or ten days
he will eat enough to form from five to eight inches of fat over his
whole body. "The facility with which he thus grows fat is explained,"
says the Abbe Casgrain, "by the easy assimilation of such food and by
the considerable development of his digestive apparatus."

No doubt the beluga enjoys himself hugely. But Nemesis awaits him. His
fish diet has a soporific effect; gorged with food he becomes stupid and
is easily taken. Man's trap for him is simple and ingenious. A century
and a half ago it was to be seen at Pointe au Pic and to-day it is in
operation at Riviere Ouelle on the south side of the river. The weir or
fishery for the beluga must be on a large scale and is expensive to keep
up; it is for this reason that when the number of these creatures
declined it was no longer possible to maintain the fishery at Pointe au
Pic. At Riviere Ouelle annually more than 7000 stakes, from 18 to 20
feet long, are necessary to keep in repair the fishery which is almost
entirely destroyed each year by ice. Beginning at the shore a line of
stakes is carried out into the river pl