EEASONS FOE THE DECEEASE OF SALMON. 241 



According to the old laws of Ireland, all such, nets were 

 declared illegal, and actions were sustained against them. 

 It was not until some few years ago that an act was passed 

 to legalise them, though, as is shown in the note at p. 240, 

 the act cannot legalise them where they interfere with a 

 common-law right. In Scotland they are illegal now, save 

 by prescription or immemorial use. If a sufficient quan- 

 tity of fish are not allowed to run up a river to stock it, 

 the river must decrease rapidly in production ; for vast as 

 is the natural fecundity of the salmon, yet so numerous 

 are its enemies, and so large a part of the watery crea- 

 tion prey upon its spawn and fry, that barely one solitary 

 ova in every thousand deposited produces a full-grown 

 salmon. Were this not the case, of course a dozen pairs 

 of fish would stock a river; as it is, hundreds are 

 required. 



Salmon run up at all periods of the year : even in 

 December, clean fish are often found running into un- 

 obstructed rivers. Every salmon in the sea would enter 

 some river or other if not prevented, and when once in 

 the river, he becomes an easy, nay a certain, prey to the 

 nets or cruives. Now the earlier fish, usually called 

 spring-fish, or those which run into the rivers in January, 

 February, and March, are by far the most valuable to the 

 rivers, and for the following reasons : Being early spawners, 

 their progeny in turn become early fish, and in the early 

 months of the year salmon is scarce, and fetches a very 

 high price They are, too, usually large fish : added to 

 this, the weather being cold, salmon will travel further, 

 and will keep longer, and remain altogether in better con- 



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