26 THE SALMON FISHERIES. 
salmon takes place more than two or three miles from the 
shore. The salmon saves the fisherman the trouble of 
pursuing him inthe deep waters of the ocean. Regularly 
every year he comes close to the shore, feeling his way 
along the coast, and playing about in the estuaries of the 
rivers or in the sea immediately outside, where his capture 
is easy. If not cut off in the sea, he presses forward into 
the circumscribed area of the river, where his destruction is 
still more certain and easy. Indeed, the circumstances of 
his existence are such that he is practically completely at the 
mercy of man, for, if a due proportion of fish are not 
permitted to ascend to the breeding beds the fishery must 
fall off. “Legitimate” fishing, therefore, impiies the use of 
such instruments and in such a manner that this essential 
condition is fulfilled, while the fish that are captured are 
taken in the best possible condition. Where a particular 
engine, singly or in twos or threes, may have no appreciable 
effect on the stock of fish in a river, its excessive multi- 
plication and indiscriminate use may mean the ruin of a 
fishery. This is the argument in the case of stake nets and 
other fixed engines for catching salmon. A stake- or bag- 
net may be, as the Scotch fishermen so stoutly maintain, 
the only instrument by which salmon can be taken in really 
first-rate condition for the table ; and a single stake net or 
two, of limited dimensions, will do no more than take toll of 
the fish as they enter the highway to their breeding places. 
But a dozen or a score or a hundred stake nets, placed tier 
upon tier behind each other, working night and day, inter- 
cepting every fish that passes, and blocking the entrance to 
the river, do more than take toll. Like a turnpike gate 
in a leading thoroughfare, they obstruct the traffic and 
reduce it toa minimum. The salmon cannot, like their 
friends the Rebeccaites in Wales, pull down the obstruc- 
