DECAY OF SALMON. 99 



any confusion of the accidental or temporary with the 

 natural or enduring. In pursuance of this plan, we shall 

 confine ourselves chiefly to Scotland, for several reasons, 

 as, for instance, that it is the chief field of salmon-fishery, 

 both for market and sport ; that the statistics of the 

 scattered and long-neglected fisheries of England are, as 

 we have seen, inaccessible ; and that those of Ireland, 

 besides being very imperfect, are to be obtained, such as 

 they are, from the Reports of the Irish Fishery Com- 

 missioners ; while we have found those of Scotland, 

 though not obtainable as a whole, so complete and 

 authentic as to one or two of the principal rivers, that 

 they supply sufficient data for the chief purposes here 

 contemplated. Still more to narrow the ground, we may 

 state generally that, with the single and partial exception 

 of the Tay, to be separately dealt with, the decline in the 

 Scottish fisheries was, till the legislation of the last three 

 or four years, universal and alarming, extending over 

 almost every river and district, from the south western 

 Doon to the north-eastern Dee ; although in one or two 

 cases, such as the Spey and the rivers of Sutherland, 

 where the fisheries are in the hands of one great pro- 

 prietor, who had resorted to a wise moderation, a great 

 difference for the better was discernible. 



Taking first and chiefly the Tweed, one of the 

 principal proprietors of its net-fisheries stated to the 

 House of Commons in 1824, that the rental of the river 

 was then £10,000, had for seven years preceding aver- 

 aged £12,000, and in 1814 had been £20,000 ; in six 

 or seven years from the time that evidence was given, 

 the decline of which the witness told brought the rent 



