200 STAKE NETS. 



altogether and return to the sea, and there fruit- 

 lessly (for it is said it will not vivify in the sea), 

 deposit their spawn, or, at all events, proceed to 

 some other river. Be that as it may, that they 

 swim, as it were up and down with the tide, as far 

 as it reaches upwards, long before they proceed 

 towards spawning ground, is sufficiently proved 

 by the circumstance, that in the great fisheries, 

 hundreds are caught by the ebb stake net in the 

 estuary of a river, when the tide is ebbing, that 

 is, while swimming, with their heads seaward. 



Herb. — These nets are, I believe, those which 

 have been so much quarrelled with by the 

 river proprietors ; but I never exactly under- 

 stood them. 



Theoph. — Bright clean salmon, at all events (for 

 it is asserted, by the advocates for stake nets, that 

 salmon advanced in spawn, proceed in deeper 

 water returning to fresh water), grope their way 

 along the sea-shore in order to find it ; vacillating 

 for the most part with the tide between high and 

 low water mark. And these nets are either 

 made to take fish when swimming towards the 

 river, which are called flux oyJIow stake-nets, or 

 when going away from it, called ebb nets, from 

 the difference in the manner of placing them.* 



* In Yarrell's British FisLes, vol. 2, p. 23, there is a drawing of one of 

 these nets, to winch I must refer the reader. Looking at it, down the left 

 side of the page is the high water-mark, and on the right the low water, 

 and the fish are taken swimming- as it were from the top of the page 

 downwards, so that the top may eitber represent the river or the open sea. 



