126 THE SALMON. 



1175; in 1819, after they had been completely re- 

 moved, 5694. 



It may be said, that these were stake-nets in an 

 illegal position, and therefore not furnishing a fair cri- 

 terion. Without leaving the same river, we can adduce 

 other facts not open to this cavil. After the suppression 

 of the nets in the estuary of Tay, in 1812, they began 

 to be erected on the open or ocean-coast of Forfarshire 

 about 1821, and were in effective numbers about 1825. 

 With what result ? On the two extensive fisheries which 

 we have been using for data, the take fell nearly half in 

 the ten years following, sinking to a very little more 

 than the amount to wdiich it had been reduced during 

 the operation of the stake-nets in the river. The num- 

 ber of salmon taken annually at one of those two fisheries 

 had never been less than 10,000 for four years previous 

 to the erection of the fixed nets on the coast ; it never 

 once reached that number in the thirty years that fol- 

 lowed. And, notwithstanding the increased productive- 

 ness of a portion of the net-and- coble fisheries occasioned 

 by the Tay Navigation Act (as shown above), the total 

 river rental was, until legislative remedy came at another 

 point, one-fourth less than it was before the erection of 

 the stake-nets twenty or forty miles off on the sea-shore. 

 These facts go a long way to establish that fixtures on 

 the shores are not much less effectively in the run of the 

 fish than fixtures in the rivers. And we have even less 

 exceptionable evidence to the same effect. 



A local bill, called the Tweed Act, passed in 1830, 

 prohibited all " bar-nets" within five miles south, and 

 four miles north of the river, which has the peculiarity 



