LIBERAL MAXIMS 245 



All this to the Southern ear sounds like 

 poaching of the most flagitious description ; but 

 a salmon is a fish of passage, and if you do not 

 get him to-day he will be gone to-morrow. The 

 Tweed used to let for above 12,000/. a year ; 

 judge, then, in what a wholesale manner these 

 fish are caught by long nets and other sweeping 

 modes ; yet in what profusion they continue to be 

 found ! You may just as well think of preserving 

 herrings or mackerel as these delicious creatures ; 

 and there would be no objection to your taking 

 3378 salmon at one haul, if fortune would so 

 favour you, as Commander Ross did at Boothia 

 Felix on the 26th of July 1831. 



Keep close time strictly ; kill no spawning fish ; 

 tamper not with foul ones of any sort ; preserve 

 the fry ; send the black fishers to Iceland ; but 

 catch as many salmon as you can, recte si fiossis 

 (meaning with a rod), si non, quocunque modo — 

 that is, with a net or leister, and so forth. 



