of the Salmon Fish, 217 



when they were worth taking, and the upper ones would 

 preserve them during close time, there would be plenty for 

 each and for all. 



I am aware that it will be difficult to legislate on this 

 subject, without injury to what is of infinitely greater import- 

 ance, I mean the manufactures of the country. The absurd 

 and impracticable clauses which were contained in the bill 

 for the protection of the fisheries, which was introduced into 

 parliament in 1825, show this. Yet, notwithstanding this 

 difficulty, I think it is possible to protect the fish, without 

 interfering with the interest of the mill-owners ; and to make 

 such laws on the subject as will be effectual, without calling 

 forth a single objection from any unprejudiced person. I 

 shall be glad if what I have said on this subject should in- 

 duce any gentleman to turn his attention to it. There must 

 be many whose opportunities of observation will enable them 

 to determine whatever is doubtful in the natural history of 

 the salmon tribe ; whose experience will teach them the defects 

 and absurdities of the present laws on the fisheries; and 

 whose influence will, if they can be induced to exert it, mate- 

 rially contribute to the amendment of them. 



Clitheroe, Lancashire, Jan, 1834. 



[A SERIES of questions, by SirWm. Jardine, designed to elicit 

 information on certain indicated ideas on the natural history 

 of the salmon genus, in its species and varieties, is published 

 in III. 479, 480. Useful information will also be found in 

 III. 94, 196. In a note on the salmon-fishery reports, which 

 was supplied to us, under date of May 29. 1850, by our 

 correspondent, J. C. Farmer, there is this sentence: — "I 

 believe, however, that the different species of salmon have 

 different periods of spawning. At Warkworth, where there is 

 a fishery upon the Coquet, Northumberland, I find that they 

 appear in numbers at different times, the least valuable kinds 

 the latest (such as the grey and bull trout), and that they 

 appear in the same order every year." — March 31. 



April 17. — In glancing this day through the Second Series 

 of Jesse's Gleaiiiyigs in Natural History, we observe pages 305. 

 to 309. on the salmon, and in p. 305, this remark : " Where 

 testimony in favour of this fact [the asserted very rapid growth 

 of the salmon] is very strong, one is, of course, induced to 

 give credence to it. At the same time I am bound to admit, 

 from observations made on the large quantity of salmon 

 which our numerous fishmongers exhibit from March to Sep- 

 tember, that there is some foundation for an opinion that the 

 growth of salmon is overrated." The grounds of this opinion 

 are then given.] 



