DECAY OF SALMON. Ill 



the Gain, choked at the mouth by a woollen mill) all its 

 tributaries and their innumerable " burns," are accessible 

 to every fish of ordinary enterprise and energy. 



This would be no harm, but for another difference 

 — the fish in Tay are befriended by the inhabitants ; 

 the fish in Tweed have always been regarded as fair, 

 though unlawful spoil. Although the Tay fishery pro- 

 prietors pay only six per cent, of their rental for 

 protection, the killing of fish in close -time is almost 

 unknown ; although the Tweed proprietors have long 

 paid at least 20 per cent, of their rental, hundreds 

 of men used to employ themselves in slaughtering 

 the breeders every suitable night from November to 

 March. The explanation of this is, that the owners 

 and other residents near the spawning-grounds of the 

 Tay were and are both able and willing to protect the 

 fish, and that those in the Tweed were neither. It 

 is comparatively easy for Taysian potentates like the 

 Duke of Atholl and the Earl of Breadalbane — who are 

 monarchs of much more than all they survey, and lords 

 of the fish not less than of "the fowl and the brute" — 

 to deter from water-poaching a population mainly their 

 own dependants ; but even the Duke of Buccleuch has 

 but small influence with the weavers of Hawick, Selkirk, 

 and Galashiels, who retain very much of the spirit and 

 propensities of their ancestors, the Border " reivers." 

 But especially, while the Duke of Atholl and Lord 

 Breadalbane were in reality protecting their own inter- 

 ests, the Duke of Buccleuch (whom we only take as the 

 readiest instance that comes) was in similar circum- 

 stances to those indicated ])y the poet Thomson, when 



