12 THE SALMON. 



Once more, kindred difficulties present themselves in 

 estimating the total quantity of Food supplied by the 

 salmon-fisheries, though a glance at one or two of the 

 ascertained facts will let us see that in this respect also 

 the matter is worth looking after. From the Reports of 

 the Irish Commissioners, we learn that, in 1862, appar- 

 ently an ordinary year, three Irish railways conveyed 

 400 tons, or about 900,000 lbs. of salmon, being equal 

 in weight and treble in value to 15,000 sheep, or 20,000 

 mixed sheep and laml.is. In Scotland, the Tay alone 

 furnishes about 800,000 lbs., being equal in weight and 

 treble in value to 18,000 sheep. The weight of salmon 

 produced by the Spey is equal to the weight of mutton 

 annually yielded to the butcher by each of several of the 

 smaller counties. The diminution in the supply of 

 food caused by the decay of the Tweed fisheries, is about 

 200,000 lbs. a year. And in making comparisons between 

 the supplies of fish and of flesh, it must be kept in mind 

 that fish, or at least salmon, though higher in money 

 value, cost nothing for their " keep," make bare no pas- 

 ture, hollow out no turnips, consume no corn, but are, 

 as Franklin expressed it, " bits of silver pulled out of 

 the water." To the legal protection of salmon, therefore, 

 there apply none of the arguments that are sometimes 

 supposed to apply to cases falsely assumed as similar. 

 When a man turns his land to the use of wild-deer, he 

 takes away the food of a proportionate number of sheep ; 

 when to an unnatural extent he preserves pheasants, 

 hares, and partridges, the neighbouring fields must pay 

 for it ; l)ut a salmon displaces nothing, eats nothing, 

 comes in nobody's way. It is largely, indeed, because 



