1828.] Salmon Fisheries of Great Britain. 31 



does not indeed consist of 600,000, as has been carelessly affirmed, but un- 

 questionably of 18 or 20,000. This bountiful provision it is that still leaves 

 us the salmon, in spite of all the efforts of grasping cupidity to catch all, 

 at whatever ulterior sacrifice. Close, then, the rivers earlier, and open 

 them later, and all at the same season ; and thus give them full scope 

 interrupting them neither coming nor going and the spawners will 

 unerringly go where their instincts drive them. Then will the kelts 

 return to the sea and recruit, and revisit the streams in a sound and 

 wholesome state ; then will the beds, swelling with life, produce their 

 full crops ; and the fry, in unchecked abundance, glide down the waters, 

 and return as peal in ' ' numbers innumerable," to satisfy to the full the 

 desires of all, and realize, we had almost said, the aspirations of pro- 

 prietors themselves. 



But, after all, the great mass of salmon in the summer season their 

 only wholesome season is not in the rivers, but in the estuaries and 

 along the shores, where the old machinery for salmon fishing is incapable 

 of working with any effect. The common instruments are calculated 

 only for the smaller streams, and are wholly inapplicable for the broader 

 rivers, . and particularly for the mouths of those rivers, and the coasts 

 precisely where the sounder part of the fish abound, and which are thus 

 for the most part left the undisturbed prey of seals and porpoises. Here 

 it is that float the very best of the fish the richest, the firmest, of the 

 finest flavour, and decidedly the most wholesome. But cannot these 

 fruitful spots, then, be successfully fished ? Indeed can they ; and, to 

 establish this matter beyond dispute, we will lay before our readers 

 briefly the different methods of taking salmon. Of these, there are but 

 three. The first is what is usually called the ?veir, or cruive that is, a 

 fish-lock, or fish-trap. Of these there are many varieties ; but the pro- 

 perty common to them all is their intercepting the fish in its blind and 

 precipitate course up the streams. It is a fence thrown across the stream 

 from bank to bank, with one or more small inlets, which the fish, in his 

 indefatigable search for an opening, is sure to find and to enter, and is 

 thus caught in the trap. By this artifice, every fish that ascends may be 

 intercepted, and nothing but the rare prudence of the proprietor will let 

 a single one pass So destructive was this instrument deemed of old to 

 the reproduction of the species, that it was very early forbidden, except 

 in cases where length of time had given the rights of prescription - 

 though, even in such cases, they were placed under restrictions to pro- 

 tect the spawners and the fry. How inadequate are those restrictions, 

 every proprietor perfectly understands. 



The next mode of fishing is that by the seine, or coble, or sweep-net. 

 These also are of various forms, but generally too well known to need any 

 description here, beyond what has already been given. But neither the 

 weir nor the coble-net are fitted for the open sea, or for bays, or for 

 estuaries, or the sea-shores. Accordingly, till of late years, no salmon 

 were ever caught but in rivers ; and the grampuses and the seals, as we 

 said, enjoyed the undisputed possession of their prey in the salt water. 

 That the fish abounded on the coasts and the estuaries, and the deeper 

 and broader parts of rivers, was well known ; but, could they be caught, 

 there were no markets at hand ; nor was it, till within these few years, 

 when fish began to be packed in ice, and be despatched to London and 

 other distant markets, that any attempt was made to take them in the 

 sea, and in larger quantities. The hope and prospect of profit stimulated 



