226 Salmon Fisheries of Great Britain. Q 



secure a competent supply, by protecting the breed. The real object is 

 to ensure the monopoly of the rivers to the proprietors, to shut the gates 

 upon competition, and intercept from the community the bounties of 

 all-indulgent Nature. 



To shew that these laws are of the most pernicious kind, we must 

 know something of the history and; habits of the salmon. It has, as every 

 thing else has, its peculiar properties ; and though much concerning it 

 is still wrapt in mystery, much is known more than of most other fish. 

 We have before us a body of evidence, laid before a Committee of the 

 House 5 of Commons within the last three years, which contains more full 

 and satisfactory information on the subject than all the books of natural 

 history collected together could furnish contributed by men whose lives 

 have been spent in the fisheries whose opportunities of ascertaining the 

 peculiarities of the salmon have been unparalleled whose faculties of obser- 

 vation have been sharpened by immediate interest whose views, moreover, 

 were conflicting with each other; and by others, whose interests are utterly 

 unconcerned, but whose local positions, coupled with an ardent desire to 

 advance the cause of natural science, have afforded extraordinary facilities. 

 The evidence is, as might be expected, occasionally contradictory ; but 

 there are preponderating facts, and these we shall lay before our 

 readers. 



The salmon is essentially a sea-fish, though frequenting rivers, and, 

 till of late years, caught only in rivers. The sea is its home ; there it 

 feeds and fattens ; but nature has imposed on it the necessity of taking 

 to the streams to deposit its spawn ; and in them, therefore, it is chiefly 

 exposed, and chiefly taken precisely when in the worst state, not for 

 catching, but for eating. The salmon that has been any time in the fresh 

 water deteriorates ; it is never so good as when it is in the salt, or has just 

 quitted it. The fact is undisputed, that the fish of the estuaries, or of the 

 shores, is superior to that of the streams. High up the streams, indeed, 

 it never goes but for spawning ; and the nearer the spawning season, the 

 more unfit for food the fish becomes. But let us pursue its annual career. 

 In the summer months, along the coasts, in bays, and at the mouths of 

 rivers, salmon are found in shoals, hovering over sand-banks, or floating 

 up and down, without effort, with the flood and ebb of the tide. These are 

 inaccessible to the common instruments of fishing the coble, the cast-net, 

 and the line. But of these many come into the fresh water of the streams, 

 and are there taken, and, together with the salmon-peal of which we 

 shall speak presently furnish the best part of the ordinary supply of 

 the markets. Towards the autumn, the numbers in the rivers augment ; 

 the roe and milt of the fish are observed to increase, and by the latter end 

 of August the fish are full. The salmon, which have been for some time less 

 and less disposed to return to the sea, in September and October, but chiefly 

 in September, push on for the higher parts of the stream, to drop their 

 burden. They do not stop till they come to places where the water is 

 not more than two or three feet deep, and the bottom covered with sand 

 or a fine gravel. Such is the imperious instinct which impels them, that 

 no obstacles daunt them ; they leap rapids, and squeeze through narrow 

 defiles glide through the openings of weirs, and spring at heights of 

 twenty feet, though rarely clearing more than ten. If defeated in the 

 first attempt, they repeat it over and over again till, exhausted by the 

 many efforts, they drop down the stream, to recover their vigour, and 

 then renew the attempt. 



