NON-LEGISLATIVE REMEDIES. 223 



other important considerations overlooked. Thus, the 

 late experiment, in one sense quite successful, of intro- 

 ducing grayling into the upper portions of the river 

 Clyde, is open to grave doubts. It may fairly be assumed 

 that the supply of trout in the Clyde was up to the 

 supply of food, or at least if it were not, it was owing 

 to injurious causes to which grayling will be equally 

 liable ; so that to introduce grayling was practically to 

 make a proportionate diminution in trout. Now, the 

 grayling, though a good fish, is not so good a fish as the 

 trout, and so the exchange was for the worse. Then the 

 grayling is a fish which is in season during winter ; and 

 though angling at Christmas may do very well in Devon- 

 shire, or the other natural habitats of the grayling, it 

 would be both an unpleasant and unproductive employ- 

 ment in the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire. Finally, when 

 grayling are in season, trout are spawning, and vice 

 versa ; and, as the two species have the same haunts, the 

 same process will, almost all the year round, be effective 

 in slaying alike the clean and the unclean, and any law 

 that may be made to the contrary will be of no effect. 



There can, however, be no mistakes of this class as to 

 the artificial introduction or rearing of salmon in any 

 river; for, besides that the salmon is not a formidable 

 competitor with any other species as to food, it is the 

 most valuable and desirable of all fish. Of course there 

 is, in the case of salmon, the heavy drawback arising 

 from its being migratory and vagabond in its instincts 

 and habits ; but still much can be done, and not a little 

 has been done, to increase the stock of salmon by semi- 

 artificial propagation and semi-domestic rearing. It is 



