of the Salmon Fish, 213 



one should do his utmost to preserve them ; I mean, when 

 they are spawning. In this neighbourhood, the properties, 

 generally, are so much divided, and so few good fish are 

 allowed to ascend the river, that no one has any interest in 

 protecting them in close time; and the consequence is, as 

 might be expected, that all sorts of contrivances for taking 

 them are resorted to. They are speared and netted in the 

 streams by day and night ; they are caught with the fly ; 

 they are taken with switch hooks (large hooks fixed to the 

 ends of staves), or with a triple hook fixed to the end of the 

 running line attached to a salmon rod. If the river becomes 

 low, parties of idle fellows go up each side of it in search of 

 them, and, by stoning the deeps, or dragging a horse's skull, 

 or large bone of any kind, through them, they compel the fish 

 to the side, and they there fall an easy prey, in most cases, 

 where the pool is of small extent. In a river so small as the 

 Ribble, it will be readily believed that not many fish can 

 deposit their spawn in safety, when practices of this sort are 

 followed, almost openly, and where no one feels a sufficient 

 interest in the matter to endeavour to put a stop to them. A 

 single party of poachers killed 400 salmon in one spawning 

 season, near the source of the river, the roe of which, when 

 potted, they sold for 20/. Need we be surprised, then, if the 

 breed decreases ? The only wonder is that they have not 

 been exterminated long ago. 



I may, perhaps, be allowed to say what, in my opinion, 

 would remedy this alarming destruction, particularly as no 

 one seems hitherto to have devised an efficient preventive. I 

 believe that, in 1826, there was an act of parliament passed 

 which legalised the use of stake nets, and either repealed or 

 modified some of the old laws on the subject ; and I have 

 also understood that the good effi^cts of this new law are 

 already perceptible in Scotland, to which it exclusively ap- 

 plied. There was a bill introduced into parliament, in 1825, 

 which was intended to apply to the whole kingdom ; but 

 some of the clauses were so very objectionable, that, if they 

 had been carried, it could not possibly have been enforced 

 without stopping and ruining the manufactures which were 

 carried on by water power ; and the bill was consequently 

 abandoned. The first thing to be done is, to give the pro- 

 prietors on the upper parts of the rivers such an interest in the 

 fisheries as will make them anxious about the preservation of 

 the fish in the spawning season ; and, to accomplish so desir- 

 able an object, no one ought to fish or keep a net stretched 

 across a river for more than twelve hours a day, or from sun- 

 rise to sunset ; and every mill-owner ought to be compelled 



p 3 



