DECAY OF SALMON. 115 



at their appointed season, from getting down again to 

 the sea. It is obvious also, that the changes caused by 

 drainage must tend to an increase in the destruction of 

 ova — the greater suddenness and violence of the flood 

 washing the spawn away when in process of deposition, 

 or even after its being covered ; the greater height of 

 the flooded water tempting the spawning fish (which 

 always seeks the shallows) to deposit its ova in higher 

 and therefore more exposed positions ; and the lower 

 and more rapid subsidence of the waters increasing such 

 perils as desiccation and frost. Except the Inspecting 

 Commissioners of Fisheries for Ireland, who some years 

 ago spoke hopefully of the " expected increase of drain- 

 age, with its consequent facilities for migration V no 

 man doubts that what has here been stated is accurate 

 to a greater or less extent ; and the more a man inquires 

 and watches, the more will he tend towards the con- 

 clusion, that this cause of decrease, whilst it is unfor- 

 tunately irremovable, is also very considerable. 



It may be said, and indeed has been said, in Parlia- 

 mentary Committees and elsewhere, that diminution from 

 such a cause does not give the owners of fisheries any 

 claim to popular sympathy or legislative aid, because it 

 has been in improving their land that they have dete- 

 riorated their waters. But, in the first place, it is not 

 chiefly the fishery-owners, but the public, that have lost ; 

 and it would be no reasonable objection to benefiting the 

 public, at no expense to anybody whatever, that you do 

 so through more especially benefiting certain persons or 

 classes. In the second place, it is not the drainage of 

 the land having immediate frontage to the river that 



