THE SALMON AND CHANNEL FISHERIES. 205 



subject. Formerly, perhaps, there might have 

 been great havoc of the fry ; they might have been 

 given as food for swine and dogs, when they were 

 in multitude like sand upon the sea shore ; but it 

 is not so now, generally ; a few, and but very few, 

 are taken by children in the diversion of angling, 

 nor is there any public object in taking a few little 

 trifling fish, not bigger than a man's finger: be- 

 sides, from their being so small, the few of them 

 that exist generally contrive to make their escape 

 to the sea. Salmon, then, are not scarce because 

 their spawn are destroyed or obstructed, though 

 impediment will occasion destruction, and destruc- 

 tion scarcity. This is all delusion and absurdity. 

 The scarcity proceeds from other causes. It is 

 not because the fry are destroyed, but because 

 they have never existed; because the parent stock is 

 obstructed in going to the beds of the rivers with 

 the freedom and facility they require; because, 

 when they do get there, (scarcely any one can tell 

 how,) the spear is too much used during the breed- 

 ing season; because, after the defence ceases, 

 which always begins too late and terminates too soon, 

 the rivers and their branches are again shut up, 

 and the old or spent fish are kept in a state of im- 

 prisonment in the fresh water, where they perish ; 

 it is because the young salmon, called salmon-peal 

 and sea-trough, on their return from the sea to 

 the rivers, are mostly taken in traps and coops hi 

 an unsizeable state; it is because unlawful and 

 small mesh nets are used ; it is by throwing the fish 



