SALMON. 69 



causing sudden and violent floods, and short as they are 

 sudden, so that the flood is all run off before the river has 

 had time to clear itself, too IOAV for a Salmon to rise, and 

 not clear enough to see hook, even were there Salmon to take 

 one. But the worst effects produced by these drains, and 

 consequent diminution in the volume of water, is the advan- 

 tage it gives to the fishermen below, near the mouth of 

 the river, who now hardly allow a fish to escape, and indeed 

 in summer the river becomes so low that it cannot clear 

 itself, as a quantity of filth and sludge is constantly floating 

 backwards and forwards with the flood and ebb tides, which 

 prevent the Salmon taking the river at all. Sir Humphrey 

 Davy in his Salmonia compares the Tweed as it was for- 

 merly to what it is now, to two houses, the one covered 

 with thatch, and the other with slate ; the one dripping for 

 hours after rain has fallen, the other ceasing when the rain 

 ceases. In short, Salmon-fishing in the Tweed is quite at an 

 end ; except in some particular years when there is rain 

 enough to ruin the crops and create almost a famine in 

 our harvest time, September, but that is all. What I regret 

 also, almost as much as the loss of Salmon-fishing, is our 

 Trout-fishing, that, too, is at an end. Last year, 1836, 

 we had not one single opportunity, and in 1835, it was much 

 the same ; for, of course, the draining has affected the smaller 

 streams as well as the Tweed itself. 



" My uncle, the same who caught the seventy pound 

 Salmon, had a Newfoundland dog which was celebrated for 

 catching Salmon. He knew the Monday mornings as well 

 as the fishermen themselves, and used to go to the cauld or 

 mill-dam at Fireburn mill on those mornings. He there 

 took his station at the cauld slap, or opening in the clam, to 

 allow the Salmon to pass, and has been known to kill from 

 twelve to twenty Salmon in a morning. The fish he took 

 to the side. The then Lord Tankerville instituted a process 



