230 Salmon Fisheries of Great Britain. [MARCH, 



Here and there, perhaps, a city knight may be able to distinguish the 

 fish of one river from that of another, and determine whether 



'' lupus Me Tiberinus, an alto 



Captus Met ? pontesne inter jactatus, an amnu 

 Ostia sub Tusci." 



But the greater part of the most zealous ichthyophagi know nothing of 

 these nice distinctions, and trust, in full simplicity, to the frail virtue of 

 the laws, and the frailer integrity of the fishmonger, for the wholesome- 

 ness of the fish thus, for any thing he knows, legally vendible. 



With these facts before us, then, the remedy is obvious. Common 

 sense demands that the close season should not only be extended, but have 

 the same limits in every part of the islands. Within that one and the 

 same period, no fish could then be legally sold ; every man would know 

 the fact, and would not look for salmon ; no one, with the belief, which 

 the law would soon impress on him, of the unwholesomeness of the fish, 

 would buy none would then be brought to market, and none of course 

 would be caught. The salmon would thus be left to follow freely their 

 natural instincts, and breed and multiply multiply, till not only the 

 great, but the little, might share in the common bounties of a common 

 nature ; for with the absence of interruption would come abundance, 

 and with abundance, cheapness. Rivers, too, would be protected at a 

 very slight cost, where poaching would be fruitless. 



But not only are the breeding fish thus wantonly destroyed, but the 

 young salmon is crushed even in the egg. For such is the rapacity of 

 the proprietors, that the moment the season opens, every foot of the river 

 is swept, not excepting even the spawning-ground, though so small as in 

 reality are the chances of any thing being taken at all the first fish 

 bringing of course the highest price. We have just described the spawning 

 beds ; now let the reader learn, that over these pregnant beds are drag- 

 ged the ponderous seine-nets, regardless of the devastation they must 

 inevitably occasion. Every one is familiar with the coble-net, as it is 

 termed ; or, if not, it operates thus One side of it is floated to the 

 surface of the water by corks, while the lower side is kept down on the 

 bottom by means of weights or sinkers, composed of pieces of lead or 

 iron, of weight sufficient to sink it into the sand or gravel, to prevent the 

 possibility of escapes ; and thus, as it works, it ploughs up the bed, 

 crushing of course the eggs or the rising fry. " You might as soon," 

 says one of the witnesses, " hope to have a bed of onions come to perfec- 

 tion, if a coble-net and rope was dragged over it, tearing up the mould 

 twenty times a day : I would as soon take my chance of the one as 

 the other." 



Nor is less care taken to protect the fry in their descent. In many 

 rivers in Ireland particularly they are caught, and sold by the bushel 

 for feeding pigs ', and all legally done, for it is done in the open season. 

 In like manner, the kelts are legally taken unfit as they are for food 

 not that they are wholly wasted for the dried salmon through the coun- 

 try is pretty well known to be the kelt fish. 



With all these modes of destruction this war of extermination upon 

 the miserable victim no wonder complaints are made in many places 

 of the failure of fish : the wonder is the species is not utterly extin- 

 guished. But the remedies, as we said, are obvious. Give nature fair 

 play. Her reproductive powers are enormous. The roe of the salmon 



