58 SALMON1D.E. 



unusual to have stake-nets placed in the reverse position, 

 with the courts open to the ebb-tide, on purpose to meet this 

 disposition in the Salmon ; and they do actually sometimes 

 catch as many fish in their downward as in their upward 

 course. 



The central portions of the streams, many of which are 

 very wide, are worked incessantly by fishermen in boats 

 called cobles, with long sweeping seine-like nets. Another 

 mode of fishing is with a net dropped into the water from 

 the stern of a boat, as the boat is rowed away from the shore. 

 Men are stationed at particular places near the river, where 

 the water is shallow, to watch the fish coming up ; and so 

 habituated are they to this, that they can discover by a 

 ripple on the surface of the water even a solitary fish making 

 his progress upward. When a fish is thus discovered, an 

 alarm or signal is instantly given to the men at the shicl or 

 house where the fishermen lodge : and immediately a boat is 

 rowed off by one man with great celerity, having a net at- 

 tached to it, and ready prepared for dropping gradually into 

 the water, one end of which is tied to the boat, and the other 

 is dragged with a rope by men on shore ; and by taking a 

 considerable sweep, an endeavour is made to surround the fish. 

 When thus discovered coming up, they seldom escape. 



Higher up the river, and in parts that are narrow, weirs 

 or dams are built across the stream. At certain intervals 

 along these weirs, cruives are placed. Cruives are enclosed 

 spaces formed in the dam wall ; the fish enter these spaces, 

 through which the water rushes, as they push up the stream, 

 and are prevented by a grating of a peculiar contrivance from 

 returning or getting out. All the wide and open pools of 

 the river between these artificial, or any other natural con- 

 tractions of the stream, are fished with the coble and sweep 

 net. 



In the work by the Rev. William Hamilton already 



