WEIRS AND FIXED ENGINES. 



cm 



of an evening", and to prevent its captures being- injured by crabs or other 

 vermin it should be examined every three or four hours (vol. i, page 23). 



Weirs* and fixed engines were in 1861 declared by the Legislature to be 

 a public nuisance, and abolished by law in England and Wales ; but so 

 many exemptions have been permitted, that it almost seems as if they were 

 again being introduced along our sea-coasts, or rendered more destructive 

 by the shortening of weekly close times at the mouths of some of our larger 



KETTLE-NET. 



rivers. But few things do more injury to fisheries, as they destroy fishes 

 of all sizes, and in many places irrespective of their condition. If the 

 interests of the fisheries and fish consumers alone were considered, not 

 only every fixed engine should be utterly done away with, leaving the 

 question of compensation to be settled by some competent court, but also 

 semi-fixed engines as lave-nets, and likewise the immoderate use of seines 

 should be jealously watched and regulated. Perhaps the most simple is 

 the kettle-net for mackerel, used along the south coast, or the stop -nets 

 and weirs of Swansea Bay ; but they, and the various fixed engines 

 employed in fresh waters, are so numerous and so diversified that space 

 will not permit even their enumeration in this place. 



* The old Saxon word " weir," says Seebohm (" English Village Life "), meant anything used 

 for catching fish, whether fixed or movable. The word " putcher " indicated a weir made of puts. 



f On the Thames the law enacted that no fish-weir was allowed to exist to the danger of the 

 broods of young swans,, but it might be dismantled at the discretion of their guardians. 



